BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Henry C. Bryant, Jr. was born in Birmingham, Alabama on February 21, 1915. His mother was Myra Jones Bryant. He left home at the age of 15 years old and completed his high school education at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical Institute in Huntsville, Alabama in 1932.

He received his bachelor's degree from Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama in 1936 and his medical degree from the University of Michigan in 1940. He completed an internship at Provident Hospital in Chicago, Illinois and six months of a pathology residency at Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri before he was drafted into the military.

Dr. Bryant went on active duty in the Army in 1942 and served until 1945. He returned to the University Hospital in Ann Arbor to complete his pathology residency. He earned a master's degree in 1947 and a Ph.D. in pathology in 1949.

He began working part-time as a pathologist at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor and opened a private laboratory, Physicians' Clinical Laboratory. Dr. Bryant also began a part-time relationship with the People's Community Hospital Authority consortium as a pathologist around 1950. He continued his affiliation with St. Joseph until his retirement in the early 1980s.

Dr. Bryant is a life member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was a founding member of the Ann Arbor Civic Forum and is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

Dr. Bryant talks about whether there should be African American hospitals.

I: Well, do you think there should be black hospitals? Should there be African American hospitals?

R: No, I don't think there ought to be a white hospital, either, or a Chinese hospital. Of course, I was reading an article yesterday that some Chinese psychiatrist was saying the same thing about Chinese patients that I've heard African Americans say about African American patients, [that] "Nobody understands these people, but me!" They're all the same diseases. And even though there has been an effort by some people to say that disease is different in African Americans, I never found that to be the case. I never saw any difference between tuberculosis in African Americans and tuberculosis in anybody else.