From Time Served to Systems Changed: Antoniese “Tony” Gant’s Quiet Power
- The Chronicle News
- 7 hours ago
- 4 min read
Harvesting Gratitude — Giving Thanks, Giving Back
Sunday Chronicle Guest Tony Gant of T&G Consulting joins Host Yanice Yvette Jackson and Co-Host Span at Stacks 92.1 FM for The Sunday Chronicle, where the community knows what the community needs. Photo Credit: The Chronicle Media Group 🎧 Listen to the full interview on Apple Podcasts: Sunday Chronicle Episode 107 – Tony Gant or scan the QR code below.
There’s a steadiness to Antoniese “Tony” Gant that makes you lean in. Not the fireworks kind of leadership, the flint-and-steel kind. After twenty years inside the Michigan Department of Corrections, Tony stepped back into the world with a sharpened lens and a broader mission: make the systems that shape people’s lives worthy of the people inside them. Survival taught him the terrain; advocacy taught him the map.
“I didn’t have one lightning-bolt moment,” he told us. “It was a sunrise. The resilience of the men around me, mentors who showed the road, and the responsibility I felt—advocacy became the only honest next step.” That frame defines his work now: disciplined, evidence-centered, and deeply human.
Today, Tony is the strategist organizations call when passion needs a plan. Through TG Consulting, he helps coalitions align around measurable goals, data that aims the effort, and messages that move both hearts and policy. He has partnered with groups across Michigan’s reform ecosystem—from voting access and sentence reform to clean slate implementation and fair chance housing—often stepping in where good ideas stall due to capacity or coordination constraints. “Passion is the spark,” he likes to say. “Structure is the fuse.”
Courtesy Photo-Tony Gant, former Co-Executive Director of Nation Outside
The résumé is strong, but the receipts are stronger. As a former Co-Executive Director of Nation Outside, Tony’s leadership has consistently centered those most directly impacted by the system, pushing campaigns that open doors long held shut. His advocacy lane spans fair chance housing, expanded voting access, clean slate policies, reforms to lengthy sentences, and the urgent fight for humane conditions of confinement, especially visible during COVID-19. The result: broader coalitions, clearer targets, and momentum that can withstand a noisy political climate.
Recognition followed the impact. Tony is a 2025 Canary Impact “10-for-10” Fellow and a 2021 JustLeadershipUSA Leading with Conviction Fellow—signal posts that his peers see what communities have long felt: he’s a builder who finishes what he starts. He also lends his experience to the Grand Valley State University Bellamy Creek advisory board and serves on the leadership committee for the Voting Access for All Coalition, adding institutional bridges to his community roots.
Still, ask him about “wins,” and he doesn’t rattle off awards. He starts with Clean Slate. Expungement is policy at the paperwork level, dignity at the human level. “It opens doors records kept shut—work, housing, the chance to be seen beyond your past,” he says. “That’s public safety, too. It reduces recidivism by design.” The point is practical and moral: restoration changes trajectories, not just statistics.
If you listen closely, you notice Tony’s reform philosophy mirrors the way he lives at home. He’s a father to a son on the autism spectrum, and that has widened his equity lens. Inclusion, to him, is not an abstract ideal; it’s a daily practice that must be patient, resourced, and specific. Parenting sharpened his empathy, strengthened his advocacy muscles, and reminded him that every “system issue” is really a people issue with a schedule, a school day, and a name.
So how does he keep hope when the gears grind slowly? By staying anchored to purpose, celebrating small wins, tending his circle, and refusing to let cynicism masquerade as sophistication. He adapts strategy without abandoning vision, because long-term change demands both. That balance—grit and grace—shows up in the way he coaches newer advocates, especially those with lived experience: own your story, learn the landscape, build a network, start local, stay consistent, and guard your health. Movements need marathoners, not martyrs.
Looking ahead, Tony sees Michigan’s justice reform movement getting broader, smarter, and more local. Expect coalitions that cross lanes, legislation informed by better data, prevention that addresses root causes, and a relentless focus on racial equity. And don’t be surprised if more of that leadership rises from the neighborhoods most affected. “Community must lead from the front,” he says, “not just sign in at the door.”
The thread running through all of this is story. Tony’s book, Midnight Whispers, reflects what his consulting work puts into motion: storytelling as connective tissue, policy as lived relief. He writes to humanize what policy abstracts, then organizes to turn that seeing into doing. The arc is simple and stubbornly hopeful: change the narrative, then change the rules, so people can change their lives.
If you measure a leader by the rooms they enter, the fellowships and advisory boards matter. If you measure a leader by the rooms they open, Tony’s ledger reads like a possibility. He knows what it costs to survive a system built without you in mind, and what it takes to build one that finally is.
At a Glance: Antoniese “Tony” Gant
Focus: Fair chance housing, voting access, Clean Slate, sentence reform, humane conditions of confinement.
Leadership & Affiliations: Former Co-Executive Director, Nation Outside; VAAC leadership; GVSU Bellamy Creek advisory board.
Honors: 2025 Canary Impact 10-for-10 Fellow; 2021 JustLeadershipUSA Leading with Conviction Fellow.
Author: Midnight Whispers.
Connect: Speaking, consulting, and workshop requests by email or social channels; author page available via Amazon.
Editor’s note: This feature appears as part of our “Harvesting Gratitude —Giving Thanks, Giving Back” series, spotlighting leaders who turn lived experience into lasting change.