The Reverend Isaac Reed Berry, pastor of several Methodist churches in the small towns and cities of the upper South, was born July 8, 1884 in Fodice, Texas, to Sarah Jane Holley and Garrett Reed Berry. His first twenty-one years were spent in Fodice, where he attended grade school and worked on his parent's farm and at his grandfather's cotton gin. Seeking to further his education, he left Fodice around 1905, riding the rails with (according to family legend) $19 in his pocket to Washington, D.C., where he entered Howard University's high school. There he came under the tutelage of the school's principal, sociologist (later Dean of the University's College of Arts and Sciences) Kelly Miller, who helped guide Berry through his secondary and undergraduate education. After graduating with a Bachelor's degree from Howard in 1913, Berry heard the call of the ministry and enrolled as one of the few African Americans at the Boston University School of Theology, from which he graduated in 1916.

Berry was ordained in 1917 and began his ministry at the Methodist Church of New Windsor, Maryland. Subsequently, he assumed pastorates in the West Virginia towns of Montgomery (1919), Hinton (1920), Alderson (1921), Lewisburg (1922-1924), Martinsburg (1925-1926), Parkersburg (1927-1932), in Roanoke, Virginia (1933-1937), and in McKeesport, Pennsylvania (1938-1941), before settling in Annapolis, Maryland, where he led the Asbury United Methodist Church from 1942 until his retirement in 1965. In addition to leading his congregation, Berry was an active participant in the Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, serving as its treasurer for more than two decades.

Berry was married to Emma Lucille Wells in 1922 and the father of two daughters. In retirement, the Berry's lived in Hinton, the site of one of his early pastorates, where Reverend Berry died on May 20th, 1975.