The Barron of Brooklyn Goes Down To The Machine

Radical city councilperson Charles Barron narrowly lost to 12-term incumbent Edolphous Towns in a hotly contested Democratic primary in New York’s 10th Congressional District. Barron, a former Black Panther, quickly vowed to run again in 2008.

“I ran a very impressive campaign and had almost 200 people who worked for free,” Barron told the Canarsie Digest. “We have launched a movement now.We showed that money isn’t everything.”

Barron has been a fierce critic of the Iraq War and U.S. intervention in Venezuela, Haiti and Palestine. He has also called on the government to pay reparations for slavery.

Unofficial results gave Towns 47 percent of the vote to Barron’s 38 percent. Assemblymember Roger Green received 15 percent of the vote. The 10th Congressional District sprawls across Brooklyn and includes East New York, Canarsie, Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Cypress Hills, Clinton Hill, Mill Basin, Midwood, and parts of Downtown Brooklyn, Boreum Hill, Fort Greene and Williamsburg.