Cora Masters Barry (center) and friends: Norma Stewart, left, Rock Newman, Dr. Doris Browne (red jacket), Edna Long- Green and Marlene Johnson. (Photo by Raymone Bain)
Former D.C. first lady Cora Masters Barry didn’t want to celebrate her 70 years of life with a low-key affair with family and friends eating cake and re-telling memories at her home. She didn’t want to have a formal dinner with people dressed up in tuxedos or gowns singing her praises.
Barry wanted to get down and party hard. That is what she and 100 of her closest friends and associates did on April 26 at the Howard Theatre.
“In D.C. we always have those types of formal parties and they are boring,” Barry said. “I wanted to have fun and have people dress like we did in the 1970s.”
Many of Barry’s friends came dressed in platform shoes, bell-bottom pants, colorful headbands, go-go boots and long-sleeved, low-cut shirts and blouses. Barry wore a red-colored afro wig that submerged her head and a dashiki and large glasses.
Julianne Malveaux, an NNPA columnist and the president emeritus of the Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, N.C., wore clothes resembling those progressive political activist and scholar Angela Davis dressed during the 1970s. Many people had to have a second look to recognize D.C. School Chancellor Kaya Henderson, as she was dressed in a white dress with orange lines, a matching headband, a large black afro wig and go-go boots.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) stopped by to offer Barry congratulations on her birthday but she dressed professionally. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) dressed professionally also but was frequently on the dance floor enjoying the event.
Barry is the widow of the late mayor and D.C. Council member Marion S. Barry, who died in November 2014. She served as the city’s first lady in the last of his four terms as the District mayor, 1995-1999.
The Barrys were married in 1994.
Barry is known nationally as the force behind the state-of-the-art Southeast Tennis & Learning Center in Ward 8 that is designed to teach young people how to play tennis as well as maintain their academic focus. Professional tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams have visited the center numerous times since its founding in 1995 and have developed a friendship with Barry during that time.
Barry is a former professor of political science at the University of the District of Columbia and was involved in Marion S. Barry’s successful campaigns for D.C. Council at-large in 1974 and 1976 and his winning campaign for mayor in 1978. In 1980, then Mayor Barry appointed Cora Barry to the D.C. Boxing and Wrestling Commission, where she served as the chairman at one time.
Marie Johns, the former deputy administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, said she couldn’t miss Barry’s party.
“I love Cora Barry,” Johns said. “I think it is fantastic that she has a 70s theme for her birthday. That was an interesting era and much of the music that we hear today had its origins in the 1970s.”
Songs that partygoers danced to included Joe Tex’s {Ain’t Gonna Bump with No Big Fat Woman} and D.C. icon Chuck Brown’s {Bustin’ Loose}. Barry was serenaded with Steve Wonder’s {Happy Birthday to You}.
Reginald Van Lee is the executive vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton’s D.C. office and helped to coordinate the celebration of Barry.
“I am here to celebrate a fantastic woman,” Van Lee, who wore a pure white shirt and bell-bottom pants with black platform shoes and a large gold medallion around his neck, said. “Cora is Cora and she is down to earth and a real person.”
Barry said that she feels fine at 70.
“Seventy is the new 50,” she said with a wink in her eye.
