Amid rumors, queries, Marion Barry soldiers on

• Recently an anonymous mailing raised questions including: "Why does Barry look so frail?" and, "Is he on crack?"

Since leaving the mayor's office in 1999, he has been free of the prostate cancer he fought in the '90s, watched a return to politics derail amid allegations of a drug relapse, separated from his fourth wife, battled diabetes, earned an uneven living in investment banking and turned 68. At the Metro station, Barry carried himself like a local folk hero, and the commuters treated him like one. He was, after all, the man who started as a civil rights pioneer, then won a seat on the D.C. school board in 1971, then served on the D.C. Council representing Ward 8 and then became mayor. Even after falling from grace as mayor in a 1990 drug sting, he engineered a political comeback as mayor that once again thrust him into the national spotlight. [more] and [more]

• Marion Barry in his own words [more]