By SHAYLAH BROWN
Jean Bryant was an icon.
A pioneer in journalism, an activist and an author, Bryant was known for her grandeur, grace, indelible laugh and infectious smile.
She drew widespread acclaim for her work as a journalist in Pittsburgh, but Bryant felt her greatest accomplishment was the work that she did with youths, according to those who knew her best. Bryant founded the founded Miss Black Teenage Pageant in 1973 and Mr. African American in 1993.
“She made everyone feel like they mattered, and had value and had worth and potential,” said former colleague LaMont Jones. “I watched her do that. I call her my Pittsburgh mother. She couldn’t go anywhere and not be recognized.”
Bryant died Wednesday at the North Hills Skilled Nursing and Rehab Center, where she was recovering from a fall. She was 91.
A godmother of sorts to the Black community in Pittsburgh and city overall, she also was a great friend, cousin and neighbor. It is her spirit that will be missed most, many said.
The eloquence in her writing garnered her many awards and accolades during a career that spanned more than 30 years.
Some of her most notable work was as a features reporter, including a Page 2 column in the Pittsburgh Press profiling people in the city. She wrote a three-part feature story on Black businesses around Pittsburgh and, along with Jones, produced a story about grandparents raising grandchildren in 1993.
Bryant had a way with words that could not be taught, Jones said.
Born July 1, 1932, Bryant was a native of Roselle, N.J., and a twin with her sister, Betty. She graduated from Abraham High School and later raised her four sons — who have all predeceased her — in Orange, N.J.
Her journalism career started at New Jersey Afro-American. Based in Newark, N.J., it was part of the largest Black-owned newspaper chain from the 1930s to the ’60s. Bryant worked at the newspaper selling ads, and she pushed for her first byline.
“She wrote it and turned it in to the (editor) who was really gruff, and then he published it and almost didn’t change a word,” Jones said. “And that is how she began writing — she went in through a side door.”
In the 1960s, Bryant advocated for police reform in Orange, N.J., after her son, Bernard Daniels, was brutally beaten by police. When she came to Pittsburgh in 1972, that activism did not waver.
That’s where Joyce Meggerson Moore, a longtime friend and neighbor, met Bryant in 1981. Meggerson Moore had just relocated from St. Louis to Stanton Heights.
“It was hard to say no to Jean,” Meggerson Moore said. “The two of us started working together for the good of the neighborhood and the city. She must have had a list of the new people in the neighborhood, and we started monitoring the neighborhood and putting out flyers to make sure that we were doing the best for the neighborhood.”
The two would canvas the neighborhood daily, sometimes to Meggerson Moore’s protest. They became known as “the woman with the braids and the woman with blonde hair.” They eventually formed the Stanton Heights Community Organization.
“People loved her. We had an unsighted gentleman in the community, and we had just been going around putting flyers and he must have sensed that it was Jean and he said, ‘Miss Bryant, is that you?” and she says, ‘Yeah that’s me,’” Meggerson Moore said.
In 1985, developers were attempting to build non-residential properties in Stanton Heights and Bryant was not pleased. People in the neighborhood began pushing back, according to Meggerson Moore. They’d go down to city hall often with their grievances.
“Jean would get all wound up about it, too,” she said. “She would go in there, and you know we’d have a plan. She always had that spirit where she could motivate people to do anything, and that is what she did.”
Jones, an Ohio native who is now a resident of Alexandria, Va., met Bryant in 1986 during an internship at The Pittsburgh Press. He shadowed her on an assignment and later worked with her there in 1989 and then the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette until Bryant retired in 1999.
Jones helped to codirect and found Mr. African American, a rites of passage program that uplifted young Black men, with Bryant, Elbert Hatley and George Moore.
“She was an icon in my life,” said Earlina Williams of Beechview, a cousin by marriage.
Williams’ daughter, Veronica Williams-Sewell, first participated in the Miss Black Teenage Pageant at age 14, and Bryant helped shape her life, but her fondest memory with Bryant was eating her pancakes. She had a special, secret recipe.
“She made me feel like a queen, like I was the only person in the room even if there were 800 other people around,” Williams-Sewell said.
At 14, Williams-Sewell went through the nine-week pageant program that took place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every Saturday. There were etiquette classes, elevator pitches and lifelong friendships made. The Miss Black Teenage Pageant always took place on Mother’s Day.
“She enforced that how you bring yourself to the table matters. It is not that you got invited to the table but how you represent yourself at the table — that is what people will remember,” Williams-Sewell said.
Those who went through Bryant’s programs were told to remember their CAP — a metaphorical term to help garner their confidence, awareness and pride.
Malika Fields, 27, of Lawrenceville, was shepherded into the Miss Black Teenage Pageant as a youth by her mom, Janelle Fields. She was crowned Miss Black Teenage and is now a graduate of Duquesne University Kline School of Law and an attorney. She remembers her pageant night well.
“Miss Bryant gave me the awareness to know that there are all of these things that I can do and I’m not limited to one stereotypical perspective, and my only limitations are those that I give myself,” Malika Fields said.
After Bryant’s retirement in 1999, she cared for her son full-time while he battled cancer. She also was a proud member of the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation. Bryant ran both of her youth programs until 2003. In 2012, Bryant received the New Pittsburgh Courier Women of Excellence Award, and she was the subject of a WQED documentary on Black pageantry in 2020.
Bryant authored the book “How Did I Get Here? The Force Within” in 2022, a memoir of her childhood and career achievements. She was an active member at Macedonia Baptist Church and continued to stay informed on the community.
Meggerson Moore was going through a few of the things Bryant gave her to keep. She found one of Bryant’s recent persuasive arguments sent to Ben & Jerry’s via email — Bryant was upset that they discontinued Chunky Monkey Ice Cream, their banana ice cream with fudge chunks and walnuts.
“She has a long letter to the management about this ice cream that they took off the market, and before they took it off, they changed the recipe and she did not like that. She wrote his beautiful letter that she sent to them saying that ‘I am a 91-year-old lady and you took this off the market.’”
Bryant was still awaiting a response when she passed.
A viewing service will be held from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Jan. 2 at White Memorial Chapel, 800 Center Street, Wilkinsburg. A homegoing celebration will be at 11 a.m. Jan. 3 at Macedonia Baptist Church, 2225 Bedford Ave., in the Hill District.
Bryant is survived by her identical twin sister, Elizabeth “Betty,” who lives in Norway. She is also survived by a half-sister, Sarah Pinkett, a distant relative of Jada Pinkett-Smith, as well as stepsons and several grandchildren and cousins in Orange, N.J.
Shaylah Brown is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Shaylah at 724-681-0262 or sbrown@triblive.com.
