Merle Bryant was born on December 5, 1938, on Valley Plantation in Winchester, Desha County, Arkansas. She was raised on Valley Plantation in a multigenerational household which included her great-grandmother, Shelly; grandmother, Mary; mother, Bertha; and eventually, her daughter Lisa.
Merle went to school in Selma through the ninth grade, then went to Drew Central in Monticello. She moved to Chicago, Illinois, in the 1960s after getting married but returned to Arkansas a decade later. She worked at the Sunbeam factory in Dumas for ten and a half years, then for the Department of Human Services in Desha County. From 2000 to 2010, Merle was mayor of Winchester.
Merle has volunteered at Southeast Arkansas Community Action Corporation and the Literacy Council.
#1: Still frame from video interview with Merle Bryant at the John Hancock Jr. residence; Winchester, Arkansas, 2023
© Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas
#2: Merle Bryant and Matthew P. Rooney, Arkansas Archeological Survey, at the home of John Hancock Jr.; Winchester, Arkansas, October 5, 2023
© Arkansas Archeological Survey, University of Arkansas System
#3: Still frame from video interview with Merle Bryant at the John Hancock Jr. residence; Winchester, Arkansas, 2023
© Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, University of Arkansas
