Ronald (Ron) Tarver (born 1957) is an American artist and educator. He was the first Black photographer at the Muskogee Phoenix and also worked at the Springfield News-Leader in Missouri (1980-1983), before joining The Philadelphia Inquirer. His career at the Inquirer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, spans more than three decades (1983–2014). Tarver currently serves as Associate Professor of Art specializing in photography at Swarthmore College. Tarver has documented issues ranging from heroin addiction to Black cowboys to African American veterans. Tarver's photoseries The Badlands: In the Grip of Drugs earned Third Prize in the Daily Life category of the World Press Photo Awards in 1993. Other major projects include The Long Ride Home: The Black Cowboy Experience in America, a nationwide project on Black cowboys, and the book We Were There: Voices of African American Veterans (2004), a collaboration with writer Yvonne Latty. In 2012, Tarver earned a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service as part of a team reporting on racialized school violence in the Philadelphia public school system. Life and work Tarver was born in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. The seeds of his lifelong fascination with photography were planted by his father, an avid photographer who documented much of the Black community in Fort Gibson. Tarver studied at Northeastern State University and soon after graduating was hired as the first Black photographer at the Muskogee Phoenix. In 1980, Tarver earned a position at the Springfield News-Leader in Missouri where he worked until 1983. That year, he was hired as a photographer at The Philadelphia Inquirer. During his 32-year stint at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Tarver's work spanned from extended photo essays on aftermath of the war in Beirut to conflicts within the Catholic church in Ireland. In 1992, Tarver photographed the heroin epidemic that ravaged communities in Northeast Philadelphia in a series titled The Badlands: In the Grip of Drugs which garnered public outcry and response from the Philadelphia police department. The story was later recognized by the World Press Photo Awards in 1993, earning Third Prize in the Daily Life category. At the culmination of the Badlands project, Tarver began documenting a group of urban cowboys in North Philadelphia. This eventually expanded into a nationwide project on Black cowboys called The Long Ride Home: The Black Cowboy Experience in America. It spanned from California to Illinois to Texas with support from a National Geographic Development Grant. In 2002, Tarver photographed 28