Former D.C. Council member Jim Graham has died

By Paul Schwartzman and Justin Wm. Moyer June 15 at 7:22 PM

Jim Graham, an unflagging leader of Washington’s largest gay men’s clinic during the AIDS epidemic who served 16 years on the D.C. Council before a corruption scandal upended his quest for a fifth term in 2014, died June 11 at a hospital in Washington. He was 71. ... Mr. Graham was battling a bacterial infection and died of a “chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder,” said his partner, Christopher Watkins.

A Democrat known for his tortoiseshell glasses, florid bow ties and crisp suits, Mr. Graham could be a pugnacious advocate for causes and constituents. He helped bring in a Target store and other real estate projects that remade two major corridors slicing through his Ward 1 District — U Street NW and 14th Street NW, both of which had been battered during the 1968 riots after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Yet even as he celebrated the growing affluence in his ward, a swath that included Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights, Mr. Graham sought to protect affordable housing and used his council perch to investigate developers accused of violating tenants’ rights.
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A law school graduate who once worked as a clerk for Chief Justice Earl Warren, Mr. Graham gained prominence in the 1980s as an aggressive advocate for gay residents, serving as the director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic during the AIDS crisis. ... When he joined the council in 1998, Mr. Graham became the body’s second openly gay member — the first had been Republican David Catania, in 1997 — and his election helped to crystallize the growing influence of the city’s gay community.
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Paul Schwartzman specializes in political profiles and narratives about life, death and everything in between. Follow @paulschwartzman

Justin Wm. Moyer is a reporter for The Washington Post. Follow @justinwmmoyer