Ed Tant is a writer, public speaker, activist and photographer who lives in Athens, Georgia with his wife Joy. An activist since 1968, Ed is the “Street Scribe” columnist for Flagpole Magazine here in Athens.  His writings also have been published in the Athens Banner-Herald newspaper, The Progressive, Z magazine, Remember magazine, The Athens Observer, Astronomy magazine,  Odyssey children’s magazine, National Comment,  the Sinclair Lewis Centennial magazine, the Guardian (U.S. activist weekly), The Atlanta Constitution and in the letters sections of The New York Times, The Nation, The Village Voice, American Journalism Review, Editor & Publisher, USA Today and Time magazine.  He is a volunteer with the Athens Human Rights Festival, a progressive political tradition in the South for over 30 years.  As a scribe in Athens since 1974, Ed has traveled more than 50 thousand miles to bring his readers  eyewitness accounts of protest marches and rallies in such cities as Washington, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta and other locales.    

    He also has written on-the-scene coverage of five space shuttle launches at Cape Canaveral, including the first flight in 1981, the first nighttime shuttle launch in 1983 and astronaut John Glenn’s return to space in 1998.  In more than three decades as a “participatory journalist,”  Ed has interviewed historian Howard Zinn, questioned  Henry Kissinger at an Athens press conference, and documented scores of political demonstrations including the protests at both George W. Bush inaugurations in Washington in 2001 and 2005 and at both Bush nominating conventions in Philadelphia in 2000 and in New York in 2004.  Ed Tant is the recipient of the Athens/Western Circuit Bar Association’s Media Award for writing about legal issues and he also has been awarded the Athens Human Relations Council’s Martin Luther King Community Service Award. In 2005, Georgia Trend magazine named Ed Tant to its list of “Who’s Who Among Georgia Newspaper Columnists.” In 2010 and 2011 he won awards for column writing from the Georgia Press Association. Ed’s newspaper columns appear frequently at such Web sites as Smirking Chimp out of New York City and  the Neil Rogers radio show’s Web site out of Miami.  The late, great, longtime activist Dave Dellinger called Ed Tant “an important revolutionary journalist” and Howard Zinn has called Ed Tant “an Athens treasure.”

Ed and Joy at the  27th Annual Athens Human Rights Festival, 2005.

Joy and Ed Tant are all smiles at the

White House in a photo by

“The Unknown Tourist” taken in 2005.

Ed and  historian Howard Zinn  pose for

Joy Tant’s camera in Athens, GA in 2004

All photos by Ed Tant unless otherwise noted

Nancy Milligan took this photo on the right of Ed Tant speaking at the 2010 Athens Human Rights Festival.  Click photo to hear speech.

Click on Ed’s photo on the left to read his archived columns from the Athens Banner-Herald and Flagpole Magazine in Athens,  GA