PHILADELPHIA Reginald Bryant, 68, a Philadelphia radio and TV host, a labor union spokesman and a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists, has died.
Bryant died of cancer at a Philadelphia convalescent center on Monday.
“Reginald Bryant was an extraordinary journalist,” Long said. “He had a sharp wit and held high journalistic standards.” Acel Moore, associate editor emeritus of The Inquirer and the first African-American on the paper’s editorial board, said Bryant was “a communicator ahead of his time. “Reggie was a professional provocateur, very dynamic and skillful.” Moore noted that “underneath that cover of confrontation and dissent was a very caring man who mentored young people.”
Bryant and Moore were the hosts of “Black Perspective on the News” from 1973 to 1978, when they were succeeded by Philadelphia Daily News columnist Chuck Stone. Moore recalled that in 1973, he and Bryant met with Stone and Bulletin columnist Claude Lewis to form the Philadelphia organization known as the Association of Black Journalists. In 1975, Moore said, they went to Washington to be among the 44 who founded the national organization. Among them was Joe Davidson, a reporter for The Bulletin and The Inquirer and now a columnist with The Washington Post. Davidson recalled that Bryant “could be obstinate, uncompromising. … He … took uncompromising positions in a principled stance on behalf of black people and in the interest of justice.”
Bryant had several public roles over the decades. Since 2006, he had been host of “In Pursuit of Truth, a weekday talk show on Philadelphia radio station WURD-AM. “He was on the air as recently as February of this year,” said WURD general manager David Brown. Bryant also had worked as a talk-show host on radio station WHAT, as a full-time public relations official for AFSCME District Council 33, and as a talk-show host at Temple University radio station WRTI. In December 1987, a Daily News editorial noted that while identifying himself as “an intellectual-property broker,” he had received a $70,000, four-month city contract to improve the image of the Department of Human Services.
The editorial questioned whether Mr. Bryant was attempting too much, reporting that his consulting firm had also received a $150,000 city contract “to produce a documentary reflecting on the history of blacks in the United States.” A 1975 news story identified Bryant as an associate professor of art at the Philadelphia College of Art, at a time when he was also co-producer with Moore of “Black Perspective. It was that program that made Bryant’s reputation. “The perspective of the questions is always black,” Moore said in a 1974 Inquirer interview.
“But we try to pick guests who are interesting to both races. And we don’t back off from anybody: The questions we ask blacks are just as tough as those we ask whites.” Born in Philadelphia, Bryant graduated from Central High School, earned a bachelor’s degree in education and a master’s degree in fine arts, both from Temple University, and a master film teacher certificate from the American Film Institute.
A WURD biography stated that after getting his art degree at Temple, Bryant taught in the Neshaminy School District by day and worked “with hostile gang members by night,” completing a film documentary on teenage gangs.
