The pendant hangs from a simple chain — an intricate shape featuring a central perpendicular with thick lines jutting out from it, each gently pointing toward the wispy outer lines that stretch from the top and bottom creating an almost circular shape.
It is Gye Nyame. An Adinkra symbol from West Africa, Erika L. Bryant keeps Gye Nyame near her heart, physically and spiritually.
Representing the omnipotence of God, its meaning translates to “Except God,” and it is the force that allows Bryant to move through this world fearlessly and with the deep knowledge that all things are possible.
That faith has carried her through a remarkable journey — from the granddaughter of a Mississippi sharecropper to now the 92nd President of the State Bar of Michigan, the 10th woman and second Black woman to serve in the State Bar’s highest office.
She has built a life centered on family, community, and service, guided by a conviction that each of us has a responsibility to make the world better for others. Make no mistake about it, Bryant worked hard to make it this far, but she also has undoubtedly been lifted along the way.
Her education was a gift. Doors opened, somewhat miraculously. Maybe she’s just lucky. Maybe the stars aligned. Ask Bryant and she will tell you her life is by most measures simply impossible.
Except God.
LESSONS FROM HOME
It’s hard not to get goosebumps when Bryant talks about her life, filled with awe-inspiring connections from past to present and extraordinary coincidences that Bryant calls “universal conspiracies and full circle moments.”
Bryant is the granddaughter of a Mississippi sharecropper. Her mother, Dollie M. Hudson, was one of 16 children. She picked cotton as a child. Generations after emancipation, not much had changed for her family in the segregated South.
Like many other Black Americans, her family moved north to Michigan as part of the Great Migration in search of new opportunities brought on by the boom of the auto industry.
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Photo courtesy of Erika Bryant.
School uniform: A full-ride scholarship from the Skillman Foundation allowed Erika L. Bryant and a to attend and graduate from Detroit Country Day School. |
Her parents were set up on a date by relatives, and James L. Butler charmed Dollie with a movie and a trip to White Castle. They married, had three children, and settled in Pontiac.
Bryant remembers a neighborhood that was diverse in virtually every sense. Factory workers lived alongside teachers. Neighbors came from different racial and cultural backgrounds. There were young families and older residents, people with different experiences and circumstances. Nobody looked up or down on anyone else. They were simply neighbors.
“When I was young, the only color was blue,” Bryant recalls, affectionately referring to the area’s blue-collar work ethic.
Her father worked as an electrician for General Motors for nearly 30 years. Her mother initially stayed home to raise the children, then worked as a school bus driver before beginning a career in public transportation that lasted more than 25 years.
The family didn’t have everything they wanted, Bryant recalls, but they had everything they needed. Plus, enough to make sure they were always helping to support the community.
Her mother helped neighbors, invited struggling families to Sunday dinner after church, cared for other people’s children, and made time for anyone who needed assistance.
As the oldest daughter, Bryant was expected to do her part. Working alongside her mother she learned to help others, stand up for herself without stepping on others, to value education, and to recognize the worth of every person.
Her parents divorced when she was young, but Bryant remained a daddy’s girl throughout his life.
She chuckles thinking about when she was expecting and her dad drove from Ohio to Ann Arbor to put together her son’s crib. She called later that evening concerned that perhaps a screw was loose and that the crib might not be safe for the soon-to-arrive Joseph. The next morning, at 7 a.m., her father was there, standing at her door, toolbox in hand. He was there as soon as he could be, because there was no way he would let his baby be worried about her baby.
The lessons her parents taught her — about hard work, generosity, faith, and showing up for the people you love — became the foundation on which Bryant would build her life.
DOORS BEGIN TO OPEN
One thing you should know about Erika Bryant is that she’s a planner. So, naturally, in middle school she began seriously thinking about what she wanted to do with her life.
She knew she wanted to help people. At first, she considered a career in nursing.
But then, she met a folksy, seersucker-suit-wearing Southern defense attorney whose legal knowledge and ability to solve every case fascinated her. Like “Matlock,” Bryant decided she too would be a lawyer and help people.
She just knew that was what she should do — even though she’d never actually met a real-life attorney. Once her mind was made up, remarkable things started happening.
First, her 8th grade Language Arts teacher, Yvonne Ray, asked her to take a test. This test changed the course of young Erika’s life and started a domino of “universal conspiracies” that paved the way for her.
That test not only won her entrance into Detroit Country Day School, it won her a full-ride scholarship from the Skillman Foundation. They covered tuition, uniforms, anything and everything she would need to open this door of opportunity.
While at Country Day, Bryant attended a presentation by a recent graduate of Amherst College, the prestigious, best-in-the-nation liberal arts college in Massachusetts and a feeder to the top law schools in the nation.
Again, unattainable. Except the presenter told one of the school’s counselors about Bryant. On a whim, she applied. Only 7% of applicants are accepted anyway. Of course, Bryant was accepted.
It’s an elite private college with an elite tuition to match. She couldn’t even consider asking her parents to help cover the cost, even after financial aid.
As an admitted student, she and her mother were invited to a swanky dinner in Detroit with alumni and other admitted students, but Erika hadn’t committed to attend because of financial concerns. That evening one of the university officials on hand talked to Bryant’s mother.
Bryant still doesn’t know what was said, but she does know that on the way home her mother informed her that she would be attending Amherst and that under no circumstances was she to allow this opportunity to pass her by.
Erika went, and her world expanded. She was able to study race, justice, identity, and political power. She became interested in liberation theology, and her studies took her to Kenya, where she studied the Mau Mau uprising.
At the time, she could not have imagined how closely those studies would intersect with her life years later, but that’s how universal conspiracies and full circle moments tend to go.
While at Amherst, she returned home one summer determined to get some experience in a law office. She created a list of practices in downtown Pontiac and methodically visited each and every one. At the very last office on her list, attorney Kerry O. Phillips listened, understood, and offered to help.
He introduced her to Judge Leo Bowman (ret.), who after meeting Erika, created a summer clerkship program with young Bryant as its very first participant. That clerkship program continued for several years and opened doors for countless students.
From there, she returned home to attend the University of Michigan Law School where she earned two titles: Juris Doctor and Mom. She was able to do both and continue to build her future legal career with the help of family and friends, a former University of Michigan Law School classmate, Ronald E. Hall Jr. who introduced her to a prestigious summer internship program that she landed in year one and year two. They even agreed to start her second internship a few weeks late, because Baby Joseph was on the way.
When Bryant graduated with her law degree, she walked the stage carrying her son, her new purpose, because more than anything she wanted to make him proud of his mama.
After graduation and passing the bar exam, Kerry Phillips, the attorney who had helped her obtain her first court clerkship, moved her admission to the State Bar of Michigan. And Judge Bowman, who had welcomed her into his courtroom as a young student, administered her Lawyer’s Oath.
The people who had helped introduce her to the legal profession were there to formally welcome her into it.
A CAREER BUILT ON RELATIONSHIPS
Bryant went on to build a legal career representing nonprofit organizations, small businesses, and individuals in litigation and transactional matters.
Today, she is owner and operator of Butler Davis PLLC in Detroit, and she serves as a commercial arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association.
Like so many Michigan attorneys, Bryant understands the challenges of building a practice, managing client expectations, meeting professional obligations, and balancing work with family and community commitments.
She is a solo practitioner, but her professional community is filled with many attorneys who provide advice, share knowledge, and help each other navigate the challenges of practice.
That sense of community also drew her into professional organizations.
Bryant became active in the D. Augustus Straker Bar Association, eventually serving as its president, and took on leadership roles with the National Bar Association. She also is a proud soror of Delta Sigma Theta. She is always willing to show up for her sisters, and they also show up for her.
Talking about community simply would not be complete without talking about Bryant’s faith and her church.
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Photo courtesy of Erika Bryant.
As a student at Amherst College, Erika L. Bryant travelled to Kenya where she studied the Mau Mau uprising. |
She grew up attending church, Sunday school, and vacation Bible school. Religion was part of family life, closely connected to the obligation to care for others. But the faith that guides Bryant today also reflects the intellectual questions she began exploring at Amherst.
She is an associate pastor at the Shrine of the Black Madonna in Detroit, a Pan African Orthodox Christian Church founded by Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr., later known as Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman. The church emphasizes liberation theology and challenges religious teachings that focused on salvation in the afterlife while leaving people to endure injustice in the present.
For Bryant, the church’s history and philosophy reflect her own belief that leadership should be grounded in a person’s gifts, commitment, and willingness to serve.
And there is another remarkable connection.
While studying liberation theology, race, and gender, Bryant had encountered the work of Pearl Cleage, a novelist, playwright, and essayist whose writing examines social justice, feminism, and the intersection of race and gender.
Among those works was Deals with the Devil: And Other Reasons to Riot, a collection of essays that challenges readers to confront injustice and consider their own responsibility to bring about change. Pearl Cleage is the daughter of Rev. Albert Cleage Jr.
Her faith itself, it turns out, is one of those universal conspiracies and full circle moments.
FULL CIRCLE. AND A NEW BEGINNING.
On September 18, 2026, Bryant stood before family, friends, colleagues, and fellow attorneys at the State Bar of Michigan’s Presidential Inauguration and Awards Luncheon.
She was sworn in by Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Megan Cavanagh as the organization’s 92nd president.
Bryant came prepared, as everyone who knows Erika knows she would. She pledged to lead by example, doing all she could to leave the State Bar stronger and better able to serve than she found it.
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Photo courtesy of Erika Bryant.
After graduating from Amherst College, Erika L. Bryant returned home to attend the University of Michigan Law School. |
She called on Michigan attorneys to join her in “Getting Back to Basics: Mastering Our Mission and Pursuing Our Purpose,” emphasizing their shared commitment to the Lawyer’s Oath, defending the rule of law, improving access to justice, and strengthening the profession through service, mentorship, and collaboration.
Ron Hall, who helped her land those summer internships in law school, was there, too. Her friend now serves as chair of the Board of Trustees for the Skillman Foundation, the very organization that gave Erika a scholarship to go to Country Day, first opened a door for Erika, and provided the foundation for her to pursue her dreams.
A full circle moment.
A new beginning.
A dream come true.