Friends with Valerie Jarrett and who is a behindthescenes adviser to her husband in a way that is quite different because in many respects, michelle behaves toward her husband as though she knows better. He said in public that shes the boss. He often sounds like a henpecked guy i must say. I know thats very you know radical to say that but i think theres a lot of truth to that. These women, both michelle and valerie, have enormous influence over his policy decisions. Another concrete example bill daly was the chief of staff of the obama white house, he said after he resigned that he and obama would come to an agreement and then Valerie Jarrett would go upstairs to the residents that night, spend the evening up there talking to barack and michelle and the next morning the president would come down and contravene and throw out the agreement that he and daley had an daley resigned because he said he couldnt function without kind of white house. Host we talk about a variety of topics and the topics are explored in the book blood feud the clintons versus the obama than the author edward klein who joins us for this discussion. Mr. Klein, thank you. Guest its been a great pleasure. Thank you very much for having me on. Marion barry served four terms as mayor of washington d. C. His fourth term after serving six months in federal prison on drug charges. He recently visited the National Press club to promote his new autobiography, mayor for life. This is an hour. The order of events for this press rap is as follows. Im going to introduce our guest and then im going to have a conversation with him and after that you can ask them questions. Just raise your hand and our Committee Members will come around with a mic for you. When we have run out of time for questions because i imagine there will be quite a few, he will be signing yearbooks. I have also been told by the management that once you are done with that we are having just night in the bar upstairs with a live band so you might want to go up and check that out. Marion barry junior was born in 1936 and a tiny town in mississippi and picked cotton as a child in the segregated south. When marion would save his mother left his father whom he never saw again and moved to memphis. He was inducted into the National Honor society in high school, received a degree in chemistry from lemoyne owing college of memphis and his masters degree in chemistry from Fisk University in nashville in 1960. He completed completed all courses required for a doctoral degree at the university of kansas where he studied quantitative and qualitative organic compounds. Thats a surprise, isnt it . He was cofounder of the civil rights group, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee which was active in Voter Registration and desegregation in the deep south at a time when it was a very dangerous thing to do. In 1964 the organization sent him to d. C. Where he won a seat on the school board in 1971 and became a councilmember in 1974. He served as the second elected mayor of the District Of Columbia from 1979 to 1991 and again as the fourth mayor from 1995 to 1999 and he has been a member of the d. C. Council representing ward eight since 2005. That despite a life of many accomplishments and we have just heard a few of them mr. Barry is known for a few minutes on a videotape of the vista hotel in 1990 and while we will get to that later i would like to use this time tonight to explore the other aspects of your life that i didnt know about until i read your book. Im sure that many people here tonight would also like to know. For instance, one thing that really surprised me was he were one of the first black eagle scouts in memphis and as a mother of two eagle scouts i would like to ask you, ill bet youve never gotten this question before mr. Mayor, what was your favorite merit badge and what did you learn from scouting . Good evening. Good evening. Let me just get that out of the way. [laughter] i think it was lifesaving in swimming. Lifesaving in swimming. And camping and watching. Was that girl watching her birdwatching . Bird birdwatching. Did you feel that you learn some things from the boy scouts that helped propel you to the university and into your life . I learned quite a bit. One, i Learned Leadership skills. I learned tenacity and resilience and courage and all of those kinds of things as well as getting along with other people from different backgrounds. I went to jamboree in mexico on all those kinds of things that helped shape my life a lot quite frankly that the person who was most important in my life was my mother. My mother finished the third or fourth grade. My father the third or fourth grade and they were sharecroppers. That is where you worked all year chopping cotton, you dont know anything about chopping cotton but picking cotton. When it was all said and done we met with about 3000 or 4000 in cash. All that work because a man had his story and he sold the seeds to my family at a price higher than he paid for them and bought the cotton back at a price lower that he could get for it and i think its important that in america you find there are very few opportunities at that time for a black boy born in mississippi living in a house without any Running Water or electricity using kerosene lamps and without the amenities that we now have. But back to my mother. My mother was a domestic. Worked for a white white woman in a family kitchen, bathroom and kids and all that kind of stuff. My mother told me and i didnt understand it at that time she was telling me this. She said, when she went to interview for the job and got through all of the duties and responsibilities, she would tell that white woman who was doing the hiring, im not not going through the backdoor. If im good enough to take care of your kids and clean your house and cook your food im going to go to the front door and she lost a lot of jobs that way. She also said, because back in those days and even now they were called by their first names. They didnt have a last name. She lost a lot of jobs for that. I think that kind of tenacity and courage rubbed off on me somewhere as i remember when she would tell me that story. I didnt understand. I was too young to understand it but that was a defining moment in my life. She lived to 92 years is old. She past six or seven years ago. Come on, 92, 92 . [applause] a long time. 92. So speaking of your mother when you are a young man you were very busy in addition to school and being in the Honor Society you have a lot of odd jobs. You were collecting merit badges but even so you were a little bit of a rabblerouser even in your youth. Youre right that he likes to drink whitewater from white water fountains but what did your mother have to say about doing that . She slapped the hell out of me. [laughter] it was the custom in the south. Boy if you dont know better than that, bam. I thought that was an interesting point in your book that back then the older people in segregation were used to living like that and it was the young ones, 14, 15 that said thats crazy why are you living like this . Thats true. Let me do this. Let me back up a little bit and put this book in context. A lot has been written about marion barry. A lot of photographs have been taken but those interviews and those stories were about the what of my life, not the who of my life, not the two of my life. Its about me being a four term mayor. What . I decided to tell the story of who marion barry really is, what it is that i am made of. [applause] and this book is brutal and frank. I tell it all, the good, the bad and the because life is no rose bed. There are no imperfections in your life and you dont make any mistakes and for those who read the book its great. You will see that there are very detailed situations. This book took me almost a year to do. Omar tyree is a heck of a writer. He has Fiction Books and im up until 1 00 or 2 00 in the morning. Going to work on my counseling job working saturday, sunday late into the night working on holidays to make sure that i was accurate in what i was trying to put together. I talked to a number of tape recorders to try to put this together and it was a labor of love, a labor of love. It didnt start with the vista and it didnt and with the vista. The vista was this much of a sliver in my 78 years, just a sliver. Thats what it was. It was important. Im going to get that out of the way right now. Regardless of what happened with this and that and said this and said that it happened 24 years ago. I say again, 24 years ago. 24 years ago. And i have asked forgiveness from rosita and her mother mary moore because she was a victim as i was you understand. Notwithstanding that, i apologize to this community. I apologize to my wife, my son christopher and they accepted my apology. This country is a country of second, third, fourth and fifth chances. [applause] what i hoped this book would do is inspire someone who is struggling to stand up as much as you can. I hope this book will educate some people as to the truth because dr. King said truth covers ground to rise again. And so i put it in that context. Another context that i go back to his washington d. C. Washington d. C. Is our nations capital. Its our local government where all the foreign embassies are and all the National Government and cabinet agencies, 435 members of the house of representatives and theres an interNational Press here, and National Press here which means there are more eyes on me than any other person in america, and america. I survived that and i have overcome that. Im not letting it get me down. I want to thank the people in washington d. C. Who were beautiful for having the sense to understand and cut through all the bs. And also the major press here. We have a few barry here. Probably half a dozen. Some are here tonight and what the barry haters do they cant find anything good. Theres always good at something, isnt there . One columnist hadnt even read the book. Hadnt even read the book and wrote on the book. That is not right to do. I think in some instances people werent doing it. Anyway back to you. I was really fascinated to read about your education in the field of science and in the book you say that you moved from science towards Community Activism because in teaching students when you were getting your graduate degree the white ones their parents did not want a black teacher to teach them in the black ones were not prepared and it started to upset you that the black community wasnt as welleducated in the segregated schools and you moved into Community Activism. I had four sisters and three of them have passed but i have one living sister in memphis tennessee. She is 10 years younger than me. I talked to her this morning, gloria. When i was in high school i went to a sports oriented high scho school. Booker t. Washington was the champion, statewide champion for black schools and everything, football, basketball, track, everything. I was too small to play footba football, not good enough to play basketball. I went out to the band and after two weeks the bandmaster said we have to go buy you a trumpet. We cant let you keep taking this trumpet home and i didnt have any money to buy a trumpet. My mother had no money. No one had money around me so i dropped out of the band. Then i decided to go into boxing and i was in about 15 fights at 112 pounds. Can you imagine 112 pounds . I move that the banter weight and the last two fights i had this guy hit me so hard i saw stars. I didnt get knocked out but i saw stars. I told the coach, im sorry ive got to go. Im not doing that. He said stick it out. The same thing happened two weeks later. I said coach, im going. Dont try to talk me back. Im glad he didnt succeed in talking me back. I wouldnt be here probably for being hit upside the head so many times. I was also smart academically and i love science at that time. Im trying not to give too many details because you want to read it if i tell you everything. I decided to major in chemistry with a minor in math. I came through an era when people were using the first letter of their name and their middle name like g. Washington cox or kay orlando cole. I didnt have a middle name and we used to do some specialty. Mine was Current Events and i named myself after the russian scientists because he had done some outstanding things in science. One final point on education, i went to kansas for a year. I couldnt stand that kind of lifestyle, drinking beer going to kansas city for entertainment because lawrence was not officially segregated. I went to tennessee and i was there for three years. The only black student in 3000 natural scientists and a black student which meant i made good enough grades stay there for three years. I was doing my dissertation. I was active in the Silver Rights Movement and i could help more people that way so that also was in overcoming, and overcoming, a struggle, tenacity, courage, a big vision. All those things are replete throughout the book. No matter what the situation is quite decided to give back to the community and i have given it to the community, every bit of it. Theres not one person who has lived here or visited here who is not affected directly or indirectly by the leadership of marion barry. [applause] so, lets skip over to several fascinating things and go to, when you won your first election for mayor there is so much that you did that i wasnt aware of. When he first took off as you have the first audit done on city finances and you found the city was 387 million deep in the hole and during your first three consecutive terms in office you balance the budget 11 out of 12 years. Thats something we should learn to do these days. He reduced the deficit by 200 million. You established a relationship with wall street and attained their highest Credit Rating for the city. [applause] you forced landlords to fix up their properties and make them clean and safe. He instituted programs to provide fair and affordable housing, reduce the high paternity rate an infant mortality rate of the story to one city to one of the lowest in the country and expanded the jobs program to more than 20,000 kids and were able to build 70 buildings downtown above pennsylvania creating revenue and jobs. I get the sense from your book that your favorite out of your many accomplishments as mayor is increasing minority hiring for d. C. Government contracts. Could you please tell us about back . Let me also say when i took office in 79 january 2 i was sworn in by Thurgood Marshall the associate justice of the Supreme Court who at one point had worked to get me out of jail with a defense fund. That was a big event for us. Washington d. C. Back in those days and washingtonians maybe dont like me to say this, it was a sleepy southern town, a sleepy southern town. This building was not here. This complex is not here. Only one building, the fbi building and f street in g street and the west and didnt have any major highrise buildings. But look at washington now. Look at it now. It didnt just happen overnight. It took a lot of work, a lot of vision, a lot of tenacity. For instance i pointed herb miller who was a white developer and committed 70 or 80 people. They made recommendations and also i reorganize the permit department and welcomes business in washington. We doubled the number of hotel rooms since i started. I think thats important that we see the big picture because i painted a large picture for her city. Again all this is replete, courage and tenacity and vision and understanding of the community and loving this community and they loved me back. Thats very very important. [applause] in terms of my programs, my most Favorite Program is my summer job program. [applause] because when i grew up i had to sell rags and pop bottles, carry the morning paper, the evening paper. I had to scuffle all during the year and the only thing that saved me was a friend of mine that live down the street, he grew much faster than me and in between my tenth, my 11th, tenth and 11th grade i grew 2. 5 maybe 3 inches. I have nothing to wear. My mother couldnt afford. He gave me all of his clothing, his khaki pants and his suits, his shirts etc. So to him i am eternally grateful but again its about overcoming. Not complaining about what you dont have but working hard to get what you want. So thats another example. But back to the city government. My second, really my first most Important Program was minority business. Thats hispanics, thats blacks, thats women. It was 3 when i came in, 3 . When i left it was 47 . Millions of dollars transferred through the hands of people who had been left out. One example of that was bob johnson with pet. The council awarded with my help bob johnson with d. C. Cable, the franchise, the franchise. He didnt have an operator. Went to tci and hooked up with him but he had a problem where to locate. The National Headquarters for bet. We had land on new york avenue where Washington Beef was supposed to go and some others. I let bob johnson we saw that land for 1 dollar a year. 1 dollar a year. He began here in d. C. He is a multimillionaire, billionaire and look at bet now. Another example not that i pointed to the tax commission. My staff said why are you doing that . Hes too young. Somebody gave you a break and he moved on to be a developer and he is one of the most prosperous developers and the country, white or black. Again it started right here because of my vision. I could name 100 more like that. The final part of this equation is black democrats. There were qualified members of the black middle class who had not been an opera gotten an opportunity to work. They have degrees, they had certificates but the d. C. Government was basically lily white at the top. So we opened the government of and had a residential requirement. Those black families move from here up to here and in fact im very proud of the fact that we built a strong black middle class. Also in the process what happened a number of the black middle class went to prince georges county. I understand it because they were getting these gunshots and all those kinds of things. In fact wade curry his second inauguration asked me to stand. I was his guest and he thanked me before w