A REMEMBRANCE: Tom Houck
August 21, 1947 — October 22, 2026
It’s hard to imagine Atlanta without Tom Houck. The civil rights activist, journalist, media personality, and historian died Thursday, October 22, after being hospitalized for pneumonia. He was 79.
Tributes to the man began flooding social media by mid-afternoon Friday, accompanied by photographs of a smiling, jovial person hugging or backslapping whoever is in the picture with him. By the look of it, Houck was friends with everyone in Atlanta. In many ways, he was. For years, whether in his Rolodex, on speed dial, or in his contacts list, civil rights leaders, former mayors, and other elected officials, as well as journalists, news reporters, writers, and authors were just a phone call, email, or text away for the social rabble-rouser and bon vivant.
Houck moved easily through Atlanta’s power and social elite for over five decades because, if for no other reason, he walked the walk and talked the talk. His history as a teenager in the turbulent ’60s as a civil rights activist is well documented, as is his being Martin Luther King Jr.’s driver during the last nine months of the civil rights leader’s life. In the ’70s Houck began to establish himself as a journalist — the Atlanta Gazette, Creative Loafing, and Atlanta magazine among them — a career that moved into the ’80s, before he became a news radio commentator and then a television news analyst. It was always easy to identify Houck when he was on the air. His rasping, gravelly voice and fast-paced speech, highlighted by the remnants of a Boston accent, were unmistakable, as were his animated conversations, during which his tone might switch from a whisper to a growl with the turn of a phrase.
I’ll never forget the first time I heard Tom Houck. I say heard instead of met because I heard him coming into the Atlanta Gazette office minutes before I ever saw him. Loud and rambunctious, his gruff and grizzled voice carried through the small building on 10th Street as he entered the front door, checked his mail at the front desk, stopped at managing editor Cliff Bostock’s office long enough to harangue him about something that wasn’t as important as he made it out to be, flew past publisher Rick Brown’s office with his then-ubiquitous salutation, “Hey, Doctor!” and then finally rounded the corner into the editorial hallway divided into cubbyholes. He passed his to get to mine. He sized me up with those piercing eyes and that grin that never let on if he was joking or serious. “Welcome aboard, Doctor!”
It was 1978. I had been working at the Atlanta Gazette — at the time one of Atlanta’s other alternative weeklies — for less than a week. Houck was a columnist there. He wrote The Tattler, a sort-of person-about-town, gossip, political insider feature that journalists, politicos, and elected officials waited to read each week with bated breath. “Does he know?” “Will he tell?” “What does he think?” “Did we get caught?” “Does he agree?” “Do we care?” That sort of column.
I was given the task of helping to “edit” Houck’s column — although edit may not be the right word. Piece it together was more like it, as Houck would come into the office once a week and start pulling small pieces of crumpled up paper, napkins, matchbook covers, and anything else on which he could write, out of his pockets and dumping them onto his desk. He would then regale us with his week’s exploits before exiting in the same bundle of loud energy as when he entered, leaving us to put his column together. Piece by piece. This was his marked start in journalism — and of our friendship.
Houck carried his strong political beliefs and emphatic thoughts on social justice and equality with him his entire life, wearing them on his sleeve with pride and dignity. He knew you had to be serious about what you do, but you also had to enjoy life along the way. And that he did. His annual birthday parties, whether at a Buckhead socialite’s mansion, an intown hotel ballroom, or a midtown restaurant were legendary. Year after year, people from all corners of Atlanta got together to celebrate Houck, many of the revelers often from the opposite end of the political spectrum he dedicated his life to championing. That was part of his charm — and plan of action — that, ultimately, people could work together if they just got to know each other a little bit better.
His death is even more lamentable in these politically-charged and divisive times.
Godspeed, Tom. And thank you.