Usual crowd of race baiters and agitators make an appearance. Services were not interrupted by any St. Swisher or St. Looise protesters.
Via WAPO
In life, Marion Barry Jr. was known for his entrances, his gift for knowing when to step into a room, light up a crowd, and put himself at the center of the action — usually conspicuously late.
In death, Barry delivered a remarkable exit, a three-day spectacle capped Saturday with a marathon memorial service that featured dignitaries of national renown, scores of clergy, soaring music and fiery speeches.
And it was one that, fittingly, hewed only loosely to schedule.
Barry, the dominant figure of Washington’s modern political era, was set to be buried Saturday evening at Congressional Cemetery after a final farewell service that concluded at 4 p.m., an hour past schedule.[…]
Jackson said Barry belonged on an “honor roll of freedom fighters” alongside Ralph Abernathy, Julian Bond, Stokely Carmichael and others. He told Barry to greet his fellow civil rights icons in the afterlife.
“Say hello to Medgar Evans,” he said. “Give a hug to Emmet Till. . . . Tell John Wilson, ‘howdy.’”
Jackson’s 20-minute eulogy capped not only the memorial service, but a complicated friendship that at times morphed into a political rivalry. It was Barry who delivered one of the most enduring assessments of Jackson in 1990, when Jackson was threatening to run for D.C. mayor and incumbent Barry told a Los Angeles Times reporter, “Jesse don’t wanna run nothing but his mouth.”[…]
Most of the speakers Saturday approached Barry’s faults — including his 1990 drug arrest and trial — only obliquely. But in a fervid speech Louis Farrakhan confronted Barry’s personal weaknesses head on.
Barry played a key role in supporting the Nation of Islam leader’s 1995 Million Man March, which took place months after Barry had retaken the mayoralty after his arrest, trial, conviction and a federal prison term. The march, Farrakhan said, “could not have happened in any other city at any other time.”