Local civil rights activist and political pundit Tom Houck has died at the age of 79.
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Houck moved to Atlanta in 1966 and spent most of his life in the city. As a lifelong advocate for civil rights, he worked as an aide to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the age of 19 until Dr. King’s assassination in 1968.
Houck spent his 20s working as a field director for the Voter Education Project and as deputy director of the Washington-based Youth Citizenship Fund, lobbying to pass the 26th Amendment, which grants 18-year-olds the right to vote.
After working with the Youth Citizenship Fund until 1972, he returned to Georgia in 1973 to work on the political campaigns of Andrew Young, Maynard Jackson, John Lewis, and Zell Miller.
In 1977, he shifted his career to become a political pundit. From 1980 until 1991, Houck hosted a radio show on Newsradio WGST. He was a regular panelist on Sunday News Conference and the Georgia Gang on WSB TV and Fox 5, and a contributor to Atlanta Magazine and Creative Loafing.
Houck left journalism in the 2000s and went on to found the Civil Rights Tour of Atlanta. The tour includes Dr. King’s birthplace and final home, the largest HBCU complex in America, and Ebenezer Baptist Church.
“I looked around Atlanta over the last couple of years,” Houck told VOA News in 2015, when the tour was founded, “and realized that so much of the civil rights history of this town has not been actually portrayed in a way that people from around the world would know how important this town was.”
The Atlanta City Council released a statement about Houck:
“Tom Houck helped shape Atlanta, committing his life to advocating for voting rights for communities that were historically denied their right to share in our democracy. Generations of leaders relied on his support as the youngest member of the SCLC executive staff, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s driver, working alongside John Lewis and Julian Bond to mobilize minority voters throughout the South, and helping elect mayors, congressmembers, and governors.
“Following his impactful political work, Tom became a trusted media presence, serving as regular panelist on ‘the Georgia Gang’ and hosting a must-listen radio show which elected officials frequently joined as guests. Tom was seemingly never ready to rest. In his later years, he was dedicated to preserving Atlanta’s civil rights history to ensure the causes he cared so deeply for would not fade away.
“The entire Atlanta City Council is saddened by Mr. Houck’s passing, and we extend our deepest sympathy to his friends, family, and loved ones. To pay tribute to Mr. Houck’s tremendous contributions to Atlanta, the Atlanta City Council will hold a moment of silence at our next Full Council meeting on November 2.”
The cause of death had not been revealed at the time of this report. Information regarding a memorial service is not yet available.
