He’s waxed poetic on District of Columbia issues for decades. Now, D.C. Council Member and “mayor for life” Marion Barry, D-Ward 8, will be immortalized in it when Madame Tussauds opens its museum downtown in October.

Barry will be the local dignitary appearing in the museum alongside Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Martin Luther King Jr., President George W. Bush and former Presidents Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, his office announced Tuesday. He was chosen after surveys done by the museum of local residents earlier this summer, Barry spokesman Andre Johnson said.

“It’s a tremendous honor for him as well as for the people of the District of Columbia,” Johnson said.

Barry, who has stoked controversy since arriving in the District in the 1960s, will be immortalized in his current role as council member, Johnson said. He served as mayor from 1979 to 1991 and again from 1995 until 1999. He was elected to the council in 1992 despite a 1990 conviction on drug charges, and he was re-elected in 2004.

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Museum officials from New York and London will come to D.C. in August to meet with Barry, Johnson said. He will sit for photos, which will then be taken to a London studio for artists to use to develop the life-size wax figure.

The museum’s grand opening is set for Oct. 8. It will be at 10th and F streets in Northwest.

Barry’s council colleagues said they could not think of another local leader better suited to be immortalized in wax.

“He’s one of the great political leaders of all time and a civil rights activist,” said Council Member Harry “Tommy” Thomas Jr., who served in Barry’s youth leadership initiative as a child.

“They should have done him in Teflon,” Thomas said of Barry.

cmabeus@dcexaminer.com