about dr. jaketra bryant
Dr. Jaketra Bryant is a woman shaped by history, healed by purpose, and driven by a calling far bigger than politics.
She is a mother, a wife, an artist, a truth-teller, and a born leader who refuses to conform to anything that dims her authenticity or her power. She is the youngest of five children born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. The birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, where courage, and resilience wasn’t just a theory, it was a family story.
Her mother was one of the children arrested at the tender age of thirteen during the iconic Birmingham Marches, teens were sent to the front lines so their parents could keep working. That legacy of bravery, sacrifice, and disciplined resistance is a legacy that runs through Jaketra’s blood.
Even as a child, Dr. Bryant carried that same spark. At a mere four years old, she walked her older sister to the bus stop to protect her. Unafraid to lead, unafraid to challenge, and unafraid to be the voice that speaks when others remain silent.
Gifted and curious, she finished her schoolwork early, questioned every rule, and pushed against anything that didn’t make sense.
As the years passed, she became the student who asked the hard questions, challenged race-based norms, explored the “forbidden” streets, and refused to shrink herself into what the world believed a little Black girl from the South should be. She grew up feeling out of place, and isolated––not because she didn’t belong, but because she was born ahead of her time. Freedom became her core value long before she could name it.
THE INNER JOURNEY THAT FORGED THE OUTER LEADER
THE INNER JOURNEY THAT FORGED THE OUTER LEADER
Dr. Bryant has always been intuitive, deeply empathetic, and fiercely independent. But it took years of intense trauma work, soul-searching, and reconnecting with her inner voice to reclaim her full self. She earned a PhD in Leadership, studying executive leadership, organizational failures, transformational strategy, equity in education, and the mindsets of trailblazers. But she didn’t just study leadership in a vacuum––she lived it.
At twenty-nine, she was already a mental-health advocate, running three transitional homes for individuals who had pled guilty by reason of insanity. Dr. Bryant was doing restorative justice work before the term even became popular. She witnessed first-hand the roots of incarceration, recidivism, family trauma, broken systems, and the generational wounds that shape entire communities. Dr. Bryant didn’t just read about these broken systems––she learned them from the inside.
She has been a leader to at-risk communities and a leadership coach to city managers, fire chiefs, and more.
Today, she can walk into a boardroom, a school, a jail, or a living room and speak fluent human, because she understands both the academic theories and the real-world consequences of not addressing the root cause.
WHY POLITICS? WHY NOW?
Dr. Bryant is pursuing the mayoral seat in 2026 because Columbus is running out of time.
She knows with her clinical experience, data research, and lived reality, that if nothing changes, the next five-to-seven years will be devastating to our city.
Families will continue to suffer as they cycle through more: trauma, the cost of illiteracy, addiction, and incarceration. The city will keep investing in buildings instead of people, and our neighborhoods will continue to collapse under violence, homelessness, and systemic neglect.
Columbus does not need another politician.
It needs a healer.
A strategist.
A disruptor.
An outsider with the courage to speak the truth.
She is a woman, a business owner and a mother whose life has prepared her for this exact moment. Dr. Bryant believes that Generation Z and Millennials are rising stars. Communities are hungry for hope. Young people desperately need to see leaders who look like them, think like them, and most importantly––who are willing to fight for them. Columbus, this change is long overdue, you deserve a mayor who understands trauma, literacy, justice, community, and the roots of violence.
Years ago, Dr. Bryant wrote in a manifestation journal: One day I am going to make history. Now, she is prepared to become the first Black woman Mayor of Columbus, Georgia, not for a title, but for a mission to heal families, to heal communities and to heal Columbus.
Join her movement today. Get involved, volunteer, and or donate today to help us fight for the positive change that everyone in Columbus deserves.