[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 36 (Tuesday, March 6, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1418-S1419]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO BISHOP JOHN R. BRYANT

 Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I wish to recognize the 50th 
anniversary of the ministry of Bishop John R. Bryant, senior bishop and 
presiding prelate of the Fourth Episcopal District of the African 
Methodist Episcopal, AME, Church. Bishop Bryant is a native of 
Baltimore and a graduate of Baltimore City College and Morgan State 
University. From a young age, he learned the importance of spiritual 
and civic leadership from his father, Rev. Harrison Bryant, who was a 
Baltimore pastor and civil rights activist.
  After John Bryant graduated from Morgan State, he served in Liberia 
with the Peace Corps, beginning his lifelong involvement in Africa. He 
returned to the United States and earned graduate degrees in theology 
and ministry and served as a pastor in Boston before returning to 
Baltimore in 1975, where he took on the mantle of leadership at Bethel 
AME Church, where his father had been pastor. At age 31, he was the 
youngest pastor in the church's history. He brought incredible energy 
to the pulpit and the congregation grew by the thousands. He was

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committed to both spiritual leadership and community development and 
transformed the church's Labor Day celebration into a job fair for the 
unemployed. He created an outreach center for the poor, 40 specialized 
ministries, and a Christian day school for children from kindergarten 
to fourth grade.
  In 1988, Rev. Dr. Bryant was named Bishop of the AME Church's 14th 
Episcopal District, which included 101 churches in West Africa and 
shortly added the 10th District, including Texas and the Southwest. In 
2000, he was named bishop of the Fifth District, which included 200,000 
church members in 14 Western States. In 2008, he was appointed senior 
bishop and president prelate of the Fourth Episcopal District, which 
includes much of the Midwest and Canada.
  Bishop Bryant's wife, the Reverend Dr. Cecilia Bryant, has been an 
integral partner in his ministry. She founded the AME Church in the 
Republic of Ivory Coast, cofounded the AME Church in India, and is 
currently serving alongside her husband as supervisor of the church's 
Fourth Episcopal District. Their children, the Reverend Dr. Jamal 
Harrison Bryant, pastor of Baltimore's Empowerment Temple, and Dr. 
Thelma Bryant-Davis, a psychologist, poet, dancer, and minister, 
continue the family tradition of spiritual leadership.
  I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Bishop John R. 
Bryant on 50 years of ministry in the African Methodist Episcopal 
Church. He has built a legacy of outstanding leadership, and he has 
delivered a message of social reform and economic justice in Baltimore, 
in Maryland, throughout our Nation, and around the world.

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