Establishing A Political Base in the Nation’s Capital

Marion Barry served as the first leader of the Free DC Movement, and was one of the first and strongest advocates for Home Rule for Washington DC. In 1967, Mayor Barry left SNCC with the succession of H. Rap Brown. Marion Barry with Mary Treadwell, then co-founded Pride, Inc. a Department of Labor-funded program to provide job training to unemployed Black men. Pride also employed hundreds of teenagers to clean littered streets and alleys in the District. In the aftermath of the 1968 Washington, D.C. riots which followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, through Pride, Inc., Marion organized a program of free food distribution for poor black residents whose homes and neighborhoods had been destroyed during the riots. Marion convinced Giant Food Supermarket chain to donate food. He then spent a week driving trucks and delivering food throughout the District’s housing projects. He was always a man of and for the people.