Martin G. “Marty” Barnes, the first African American mayor of Paterson, New Jersey, was born on March 15, 1948, and reared in the impoverished Riverside Projects of Paterson. He had two brothers, Tyrone and Ronald Barnes. Martin Barnes attended public schools in Paterson, including Eastside High School, where he graduated in 1966. He then continued his education at Seton Hall University, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Educational Psychology in 1970.
Barnes began his political career as a City Councilman from Paterson’s 3rd Ward. Barnes, a 26-year-old Republican, was first elected to the Council in 1974. He soon became known for his initiatives to improve education and public safety in his ward, which earned him respect and popularity among his constituents.
In 1987 Barnes ran for the New Jersey General Assembly seat in District 35. He won the GOP nomination. However, he finished behind incumbent John Girgenti and another Republican, Bill Pascrell from Paterson.
Martin Barnes was elected mayor in 1997. He was the only Mayor to run unopposed in the city’s history and the city’s first African American Mayor. He was also the first Black Republican Mayor of Paterson and the first Republican elected Mayor by Paterson voters since Lawrence “Pat” Kramer in 1978.
During his five-year tenure as Mayor of Paterson from 1997 to 2002, Barnes made history by avoiding raising the city’s property taxes following reappraisals. At the time, New Jersey had some of the highest property taxes in the nation, with the average property tax bill reaching $4,240 in 1999.
Near the end of Barnes’s mayoral career in 2002, he was investigated for corruption which led to a forty-count indictment handed down by United States Attorney and future New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie. Barnes was charged with extortion and graft involving a paving contractor who had earned $16 million in city contracts. Additional charges included mail fraud related to the kickback scheme. A contractor’s tape recordings proved Barnes’s role in the kickback scheme. When he was forced to leave the mayor’s office in 2002, Barnes entered a plea bargain with the federal government, and in 2003, he was sentenced to 37 months in prison.
Martin and his spouse, Diane Barnes, reared two sons, Gregory Barnes and Marcus Barnes, and a daughter, Antoinette Barnes.
Martin G. Barnes died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 28, 2012. He was 64. Despite the controversies that marked the later part of his career, Barnes’s early achievements in public service left a lasting legacy in Paterson and on the New Jersey Republican Party.
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“Former Paterson Mayor Martin Barnes dead at 64,” https://www.nj.com/news/2012/12/former_paterson_mayor_martin_b.html; “Martin G. “Marty” Barnes,” https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/2397928/martin-g-marty-barnes; “Martin Barnes: Politician,” https://prabook.com/web/martin.barnes/2274675.
