(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Workin' It Out," a podcast show about diversity, equity, and inclusion in our workplaces, our communities, and our lives, a show where we put diversity and inclusion to work.

(upbeat music) ♪ Got problems on the job ♪ ♪ We're workin' it out ♪ ♪ Workplace got you stressin' ♪ ♪ We're workin' it out ♪ ♪ Yeah, we're workin' it out, workin' it out ♪ ♪ Workin' it out ♪ ♪ Dr. V ♪ - Hi, I'm Dr. Vanessa Weaver, your host of "Workin' It out."

On this episode of "Workin' It Out," we're gonna explore the topic, The Courage of Activism.

And the reason that we're exploring this topic now because we're in a period of time where many people are asking people to be activists, to really march and speak out for what they believe in.

And as I thought about active activists and activism in this DMV area, I could think of no one more prominent and more committed to activism than our guest today.

And so today, we are gonna be speaking to Ms. Cora Masters Barry, the former First Lady of Washington D.C. but we call her the First Lady of Life, to talk to us about the courage of activism.

Because really, without courage, I don't think you can be an activist.

But we're gonna let her tell us about that.

So I wanted to welcome Ms. Cora Masters Barry to the show today.

- I'm just glad to be here.

And thank you so much, Vanessa, for all the work that you've done down through the years on the interest of equity and fairness.

- Well, thank you; thank you.

Well, Cora, you know, I tend to be a research fanatic and I'm always refreshing myself on people.

And, like you said, you've known me for years, I've known you for 30 something years now.

And I just marvel at your accomplishments, at your energy, at your commitment.

So in doing my refresh, I said, "Well, let me just go into chatGPT and find out "what they're saying new about activism and activists."

And so, I went in and I, you know, did my little search, a chat refresh on what is activism and all this stuff I thought about.

And I said, "Well, let me check Cora out."

And Cora, do you know they have two pages on you on chatGPT?

- I don't know.

What did I do wrong?

- Let me tell you what they said.

I'm gonna read the paragraph 'cause it just brought this big smile to my face.

They said, "Cora Masters Barry, "the former First Lady of Washington D.C., "has established herself as a dedicated activist "through her unwavering commitment to addressing racial, "social, and economic disparities "affecting the Black community.

"Her activism is evident in several key areas."

And they named three, Cora.

One is educational and recreational initiatives.

The second was political and civic engagement.

And the third was empowerment and advocacy for Black women.

What you got to say about that?

- Well, they left out the arts.

- And then, they close it by saying, "Through these initiatives and her continuous advocacy, "Cora Masters Barry exemplifies activism "by creating platforms for education, cultural expression, "and political engagement, all aimed at uplifting "the Black community in Washington D.C." - Who wrote that?

- This was, I'm gonna send it to you.

- Yeah, I'd like to see that.

I don't know anything about that.

It was pretty accurate in terms of the things I've done.

They just left out the Arts Commission.

- No, they have that in here.

- Oh, do they?

- Under each one of these, they have bullets.

I just didn't go into all the bullets that they listed for you.

But the Arts Commission is definitely in there.

- Good.

- Well, Cora, you know, activism, when I think of activism and you, it seems like it's part of your DNA.

But I know that all activism had to start somewhere: the understanding of it, the belief of it, the practice of it.

So can you tell us, what started your road to activism?

- A few years ago, I got an award from "Rolling Out."

And it was called Women of Power, Their Secret Power.

And they were gonna give us an award.

And every time I'd try to think of something that was my secret power, the only thing I could come up with was my mother.

My mother brought us to California to get away from the South.

It's a long story.

But she had a BA degree.

And because she went to a Black college, which was Langston University, the Board of Education wouldn't let her teach.

They told her to take some more courses because, you know, it was a Black degree.

She did that.

And in racist Los Angeles in the '50s, 'cause I was two years old, I was born in 1945 so that was like 1947, almost 1950, my mother was able to raise six kids.

Every home we ever lived in, we purchased.

She was way ahead of her time.

She'd buy the house, we'd live there a couple of years, she'd flip the house.

She did that until she moved us to Pasadena.

She taught school at the same time.

And if you talk about activism, my mother was strong and forceful.

She was a very determined woman and she was brilliant.

She was way ahead of her time.

Like we used to say, "My mother would correct a telephone pole."

And she got into it with her White principal at a all-white, just about, elementary school: Washington Elementary School up the street from us.

And I don't remember if she was either fired or she quit.

But my mother went on a protest movement.

She wrote letters.

She put articles in the newspaper.

She campaigned up and down the city, I mean, I'm sorry, the street where the school was, protesting.

The woman eventually was fired.

And in the article they interviewed her was "The Star Newspaper" in Pasadena, she said "Isabel was the bane of my existence."

That didn't mean anything to me then.

But when I look back on it, what Black woman had the courage in all-White Pasadena to take on an all-White school and a White teacher and win.

That pretty much...

Her courage, her activism, her strength came to me in ways that I didn't recognize it until way in my life.

I was always an activist in the sense that I always was leading.

But trust me, I was leading in the wrong direction many times.

When I was in college, everything that was happening in the dormitory that was bad, they associated with me 'cause I was a organizer.

So I'd organize us to attack.

The new freshmen, I was like that.

But that came from my mother, but it took me years to realize it.

She got her PhD at 68 years old.

- I was gonna say, wasn't she in her late 60s?

- She was 68 years old, from the University of Oklahoma.

- So when you think about your mother, what were the lessons that you learned from her?

If you could distill 'em down to us.

- Well, the number one thing is that I didn't understand sexism until I was out of college.

Because she never defined anything for us in terms of our gender.

She never said a woman does this, a woman doesn't do that.

So I had no barriers.

The other thing was that she was fearless.

And then the other thing that I think that really endeared me was that my mother was always for the underdog.

Her biggest fight was always for those who couldn't fight for themselves.

So my lesson is: Don't back up.

Don't back down.

Take a stand.

Be determined and be ready to take the consequences of your action.

There're casualties in protest.

There's casualties in activism.

It's not smooth.

You don't go out and march in a march and come back and everything is solved.

You may lose your job.

You may get arrested.

You'll get ostracized.

But at the end, if you're standing right, it will be what it's supposed to be.

And I have lived that.

And as a founder of the Southeast Tennessee Learning Center, we have a program called "Blacks in Wax."

And we were scheduled this year to go to the Kennedy Center as an example.

And because of the things that are going on right now that we don't need to waste our air time on, it became clear to me that no matter what, we couldn't go back.

They wanted us to come back, but we could not in that atmosphere.

But what could I do to convince the kids that it wasn't a loss?

So last night, I went to the school, to the rehearsal.

I played them a video of the Children's March in Birmingham.

I showed them how the kids showed up for Martin Luther King when the adults wouldn't.

And 3,000 kids, I'm shortening The story, showed up and they kept showing up and they broke the back of segregation in the South.

King had been on it for 10 years.

What a lot of people don't realize is that he wasn't always successful.

A lot of times, it was just him and four or five people marching 'cause Black people were scared.

The children weren't.

They got out there.

They got in front of those police officers.

When it was all done and said, they fired Bull Connor.

If you don't know who he is, look him up.

And President Kennedy enacted the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a result of that movement.

And I took it to my kids, and I showed it to 'em.

And I said, "We're not going to the Kennedy Center "in an act of protest and an act of resistance.

"We don't wanna go there."

I made them own that.

To be proud, to take a stand, yeah, there's a sacrifice.

There's a major sacrifice.

Kennedy Center is great.

They treat us like royalty.

But we are not gonna take your good as long as you're treating somebody else there bad.

- Well, let me ask you, I mean, you raised such an important point.

Because, you know, our title, The Courage of Activism, we put courage in front of activism.

Because in my opinion, a lot of people are not exhibiting a lot of courage right now.

And yet, you consistently do.

But you just talked about that just because you engage in activism doesn't mean it's gonna always have a positive outcome.

So in your decades of being an activist, have you ever suffered a negative consequence for that?

- Well, other than right now, yes.

Yeah, I got arrested when I was in Texas Southern.

I've lost jobs.

You know, we tried to close a situation down at my school.

I got kicked outta school.

Yeah, I've suffered, yeah.

But that didn't deter me, that encouraged me.

But to speak of the word courage, my dear friend, Maya Angelou, used to always say that of the seven virtues, courage was the most important one.

Courage is consistency, consistency.

Courage is determination.

Courage is being afraid and doing it anyway.

'Cause courage certainly doesn't mean you're not scared.

- That's right.

- It means you're scared, but it's not gonna stop you.

- And I'm so glad you made that distinction.

So it doesn't mean you're not scared, it just means the fear is not gonna stop you.

- Yeah.

- Right.

So when you talked about, you know, being arrested, being kicked out of school, well, what were some of the examples?

I mean, what were the activist actions you were engaged in?

What are some examples of those?

- Well, when I was in high school, they didn't have any Black kids, although it was only about 10 of us in the whole school, they wouldn't let the Black girls be, what do you call 'em, cheerleaders.

They only let the Black boys play on the football team for all the obvious reasons, but none of the activities.

So I grabbed a few of my friends.

And we sat in in the principal's office.

We demanded to be treated fairly, to let the Colored, I think we called ourselves either Negro or Colored back then, people participate.

And we wouldn't move.

They called my mother, and my mother said, "Well, I can't tell her what to do."

So they kicked me out.

My mother was proud of me, although I didn't tell her I was gonna do it.

And I mean, I was in high school when I was doing that.

- [Vanessa] So did you have to go to another high school?

- No, do you know who my mother is?

(Vanessa and Cora laugh) No, I was back the next week.

- You were back the next week.

- Trust me, she went up there and handled it when they kicked me out.

Trust me, my mother was somebody that would come to the school to embarrass you in a robe.

She didn't even bother to put her clothes on.

She'd be up there to handle her business.

No.

- And what's so interesting, you were in LA in Pasadena at this time, right?

- Yeah, I was in Pasadena, John Muir High School, which, by the way, just got burned down.

- Well, you know, Cora, you talked about the high school activism and the college activism.

And I mean, my goodness, activism seems to be part of your DNA.

- Well, it's no option for me.

I automatically in my gut resist.

Something happens to me when I feel like something's not fair.

- Well, let me ask you, I mean, you've been engaged in so much activism.

Like I think you and I agree, it's part of your DNA.

I won't say that you're never fearful, but if you are fearful, it doesn't stop you from engaging, having the courage to continue pushing forward in your activism.

So let me ask you, Cora, out of all of the things you've been an activist for, what are you most proud of?

- Well, I guess if you're not talking about results and you're just talking about participation, when we demonstrated in Texas Southern for civil rights and for voting rights.

Because that was the key to life.

And it was a dangerous thing.

And we did get in trouble, and we were put on probation.

But because the parents came so hard, they didn't kick us outta school.

So I was very proud of that.

'Cause that took a lot of courage.

To be on the streets in the South in demonstrations, you were literally risking your life.

It's just your life.

I mean, they didn't care anything about shooting you or killing you.

- Around what age were you?

- I was in college.

I was at Texas Southern.

- Okay, so what?

- I was young though.

I was about 18; 18, 19.

- Oh my, okay.

Well, Cora, you know, it's been 10 years since the passing of the beloved Marion Barry, you know, our Mayor for Life of Washington D.C. And I've just been really intrigued by the commitment you've shown to keep his memory alive and the activism around that.

I mean, you have had a beautiful statue made of him that's in front of the D.C. District Building on Pennsylvania Avenue.

There's a street named after him.

And just recently, you unveiled this, I've never seen a mural like that of his decades of contribution and commitment to Washington D.C. And not only was this so beautiful and just so massive and with such historical significance, but when I think about what touched me most in that ceremony was when I saw tears come to your eyes.

Do you remember that?

- Well, yeah.

People don't usually see me that way, and I don't know why.

'Cause when you cut me, I bleed like everybody else.

They named the building after Marion during COVID.

It was a very small program, and it was fine.

And they kept trying to figure out how to acknowledge that.

So long story short, we came up with this mural.

It was a two-year process.

It was very, very, very hard.

It was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

It was almost being involved in a perpetual funeral, just dredging up stuff.

But the reason I've been so dedicated to it, a lot of people think it's because he's my husband.

No, no, no, no, no.

I knew Marion Barry inside out, up and down for, I met him in 1972.

I've watched him and seen the things he's done.

We'd been friends for a very long time before we got together and got married and our relationship changes.

Marion said, and to quote him, "Friendship turned into love-ship."

Now that's weird, but that's how he talked.

So the important thing was he sacrificed his life for this city.

And he changed the city in ways that every day we are benefiting from it.

And I am a historian.

And knowing how history is, if you don't write it, if you don't show it, it will be forgotten.

And I think that his sacrifice, which literally changed the city, I didn't want it to be forgotten.

And so I fought for that.

And I fought for, conceptually, that in other parts of the city too, that I hope people will pick up the mantle and do.

Because there are other people.

But Marion made the ultimate sacrifice to save the city and to help his people.

He started in the Civil Rights Movement.

And so he was always dedicated to his people.

And everybody asked me, what was the root of his dedication?

I can tell you, one thing that I know, two things.

One, that he grew up in Memphis.

He was born in Mississippi.

But they could only go to the zoo on Thursday.

That deepened his heart.

And then the other thing was, he was always very industrious and he couldn't work.

The only thing he could do was sell papers in his Colored neighborhood.

So he couldn't find a job, and he couldn't go to the zoo till Thursday.

That fueled his whole drive, economic drive that he showed here, and his fight for justice.

So it's because he deserved it.

He really deserved it.

I mean, there are lots of mayors who do lots of things.

But he didn't do lots of things; he did amazing things.

And there are people right now to this day, three, four generation of wealth.

People's, you know, companies are flourishing because of Marion Barry.

Kids got summer jobs 'cause of Marion Barry.

I used to call my mother when I was younger.

Now I'm older.

And I'd say, "Mother, when I get old, I wanna be in DC "'cause the seniors got it going on in DC "under Marion Barry."

So that's why.

'Cause he had the courage, he had the fearlessness.

He stood in front of the water hose and the dogs.

And he stood up in front of the United States government, President Johnson if you go to the tapes, during that time before we got Home Rule and Marion was raising all that cane.

- So have people actually said that you were doing all of this effort to make sure that his history and his contributions were remembered was because you were his wife?

- People say everything.

Yeah, they said that and more.

I mean, they say a lot of bad things.

I don't care.

- Would it have been wrong if part of it was because you were his wife?

- Well, because I was his wife, I was able to have the power to do it.

But if I wasn't his wife and it was his lifetime, then I'd still be working toward it.

It was the citizens.

There's no way that I could do any of this if there wasn't tremendous buy-in.

I'm one person.

How am I gonna get a big old statue up in the District Building?

That had to be a buy-in from the mayor and the city council.

There's no way that I'm gonna have a street named down in the middle of Ward 8 and Ward 7 if the residents wasn't for it.

Because the first thing they do is ask the residents in the hearings and whatever else.

I would never initiate something like that.

That's the background.

I will be the one.

I'll tell you, the one thing I am totally credited for is the mural.

When Phil agreed to name the building after Marion, I said, "Don't put another picture of him, "not another statue.

"Let's tell the story."

Now I did that.

I mean, I had a lot of help but I initiated it.

Huh?

- It's beautifully done.

- Thank you.

- I mean, absolutely exquisite.

So, Cora, you know, again this GPT, but this is gonna be the question I wanted to ask you.

And I sent it to you as a potential question.

But it's interesting that GPT mentioned the fact that you've been such a strong activist for women, the empowerment of women, equity for women.

So tell me, as you think about how you've influenced women to be activists and so many...

I know that you grew up under Dr.

Height and others, but when you work with other Black women, Latina women, Asian women around being activists, what do you tell them about the watch outs that they have to be careful about?

- I think the most important thing that I've enforced to women and modeled for them is support of other women, that women need a village.

They need a bench.

And so, my activism has been for women but with women.

You know, women like Melanie Campbell and Mignon Moore and Natalie Hopkinson.

And I can just name different women, and many women younger than myself, most of them are, and they're doing well in their spaces.

But when it's time, sometime you gotta get out of your comfort zone and confront some things.

But you also have to support each other.

We move much more faster when we build a ladder of women holding up women.

So I've really advocated when my friend Angela Alsobrooks ran for the Senate in Maryland.

Some of the stuff that was coming for her for a good example was sexist and it was racist and nobody was saying anything.

And so we activated a group of women across the country that wrote a letter that went all over the country.

And they were reading it on the news, even showing the letter, some I'd never seen.

And it turned the campaign.

Because the Black women said, "We're not doing this.

"No, you're not saying this about her.

"You're gonna have us to deal with."

So I think that we are very powerful as Black women when we support each other and stand up for each other.

And then Angela will tell you herself, that was a turning point.

Because the guy who had perpetuated that started trying to dig himself out of it and dug himself in it.

- Oh, my goodness.

- Mm-hmm.

And that's your state.

- Okay.

So when you named these women, it struck me that there's a intergenerational connection here, that it's not just women in your generation that you connect to, but you're connecting to a lot of young women activists.

- If the truth be told, I don't really have too many women in my generation I connect with.

A lot of 'em are gone.

That's just the truth.

All the women that I was really close to and really friends with and we were on our way together, none of them are here.

Not one of them are here.

Most of the women that I associated with is just about 10 years older than me, or 10 or 15 years younger than me.

- And they're gone.

- And the ones that are my peers, my close peers, they're gone.

And that is why I don't hide my age.

Because I think age is a blessing.

- Yeah, it is.

And and you're gonna celebrate a big birthday this year, right?

- Yeah, I'm gonna be 80 in a couple of months, and I'm proud of it.

- And you should be; you should be.

What a a legacy you have.

So what makes this intergenerational aspect work for you?

- Well, it's really not structured.

It's just certain women that I associate with, and I see something great in them and I'll encourage them, like Tamika Mallory or Monica Ray here who's done great work on this side of town as a developer and all, but she has so much more.

And to just show them and put... You know, the most important thing you can do with women like that is put 'em in a room, put 'em in the room where they belong and tell everybody, "Make room for her; "she belongs in this room."

And they carry it from there.

You put 'em in the room.

You don't just advise them and counsel them, but you put 'em in spaces that they belong in that they didn't have access to.

- And so, this whole courage...

I mean, because a lot of times, we hear that story that you really can't promote and support and push other women because it doesn't help your particular agenda.

It doesn't sound like that's what you operate on.

- Oh, that's so silly.

- It's silly.

I agree.

- That's silly.

- But do you think people believe that?

- Well, if they do, they're silly.

And I'm gonna tell you, the people who do that don't get very far.

That's not the way it goes.

When you wanna turn me off, that's the way to do it.

There was a younger woman...

I've got sort of a gut reaction, when young women ask me to help em, I'm like, "Okay, what can I do?"

She had had this event.

I'd gone to this event.

I even stood up and, you know, claimed I was gonna give $1,000 which I couldn't afford.

But I was just wanting to help her, blah, blah, blah.

I saw her a couple of weeks later.

I sat at a table with some very important people.

We were connecting, but I admit I lost her number or whatever.

I saw her somewhere and I said to her, "You know, I need the number."

I'm trying to avoid names.

"I need the number of blah, blah, blah."

Long story short, she told me, "Well, those are my connections."

Yeah, that's what I did.

I was like, "Oh."

I said, "Okay, well I'll figure it out; I'll Google it."

"Well then, that won't get you very far."

"Well, if that won't get me very far, "I'm asking you for a number.

"What's your problem?"

But I didn't say any of that.

I just stopped dealing with Her.

- You know, our time is just like.

And I know our listeners have appreciated and have enjoyed this show.

So I wanna thank you again.

- I enjoyed it myself.

Have me back; I wanna do it again.

- Okay, I'll have you back.

So on behalf of our "Workin' It Out' crew, I'm Dr. Vanessa Weaver, your host.

And I wish you a Be Happy Week.

Goodbye.

♪ Got problems on the job ♪ ♪ We're workin' it out ♪ ♪ Workplace got you stressin' ♪ ♪ We're workin' it out ♪ ♪ Yeah, we're workin' it out, workin' it out ♪ ♪ Workin' it out ♪ ♪ Dr. V ♪