Barry was first elected mayor in 1978 after building a political career as an official of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and a local activist in Washington. [...] he gained international notoriety in 1990 when he was videotaped in an FBI sting smoking crack in a downtown Washington hotel room with a female friend. Even as he was fighting kidney disease in early 2009, prosecutors were seeking to revoke probation in a tax case, saying he had not kept a promise to file annual returns. While an undergraduate at LeMoyne College (now LeMoyne-Owen College), Barry picked up the nickname "Shep" in reference to Soviet propagandist Dmitri Shepilov for his ardent support of the civil rights movement. Barry's work with the committee brought him to Washington, where he became immersed in local issues, joining boycotts of the bus system and leading rallies in support of the city's fledgling home rule efforts. The early years of Barry's long tenure were marked by improvement in many city services and a dramatic expansion of the government payroll, creating a thriving black middle class in the nation's capital. Barry established a summer jobs program that gave many young people their first work experience and earned him political capital. On Jan.