Rollins (Bryant Jr.) is born in Boston.

The son of Edward Bryant and Edith (Wade) Rollins, Bryant Rollins grows up in Roxbury and Dorchester, graduates from English High School and Northeastern University. He becomes a pioneering African-American journalist as a reporter for the Boston Globe, editor of the Bay State Banner in 1965* the New Amsterdam (N.Y.) News and an editor at the New York Times. Rollins also writes two novels and co-writes an biography of Cab Calloway. He dies in Jacksonville, Florida on May 27, 2022.