Local pastor, former councilman speaks to Seguin on MLK Day

(Seguin) – Messages from the heart — that’s exactly what folks who took part in this year’s MLK Day March and Program received from local pastor and former Seguin City Councilman Jeremy Roy. Roy served as the guest speaker for the program held in downtown Seguin Monday morning. The program immediately followed the annual Freedom March from Texas Lutheran University to Central Park. The large group of marchers took part in the symbolic trek across communities as remembered by those civil rights leaders in the 1960s.  

In his address to the crowd, Roy spoke of what he personally felt was the message to be bestowed to all of those attendance and to all those who would be reading and listening to his words in local media. He says although his kind nature helped him to agree to speak, he quickly began to ponder of what to say.

With the help of a friend, Roy says he quickly came to realize the words had to come from his heart – a heart shaped by his years of serving the church and the residents of Seguin.

“We’ll here’s that message. It’s not all that profound. It’s kind of simple in fact but here’s that message. I am with you. I am here. I am here and I am listening, and I care, and I want to learn, and I will march with you and I will stand up with you. Lillian Smith a contemporary of Dr. King, a civil rights activist and writer, she said this, ‘When you stop learning, when you stop listening, when you stop looking and you stop asking new questions,’ she said – this is kind of a harsh message, but she said, ‘when you stop listening, then it’s time to die. Well guess what? I ain’t dead yet. I am alive and I am well, and I am going to keep listening and I am going to keep learning and as long as I have breath, I will be doing my best as a human being and as a white man and as a member of this community, as a follower of Christ as a child of God to be a neighbor to all people. I promise to keep listening and to keep looking and keep asking questions and striving to understand,” said Roy. 

Roy says the changes that began by MLK so many years ago are still in full swing. He says it’s about making those changes not only as community but within each of ourselves. 

“Dr. (Norm) Beck just prayed, and he quoted King and King said it himself. This is a spiritual movement. We are human beings having a spiritual experience, but we are spiritual beings having a human experience and that’s when change takes place – at that spiritual level. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can drive out hate. We’ve got to show up and love each other and that comes from a spiritual place so it invokes faith, it evokes spirituality and without that connection, that spiritual connection, I don’t know if we will ever get to the heart of the matter,” said Roy.

When asked about how to go about making those changes, Roy says the answer was simple.

“We need to get involved. We need to speak up, but I think before we speak, we’ve got to listen. We’ve got to understand, things are better but there is still work to do and we have to get involved and we have to show up and if you look out over this crowd, very very diverse. I think that’s the thing that I love. I love the fact that this park has been a place where this town gathers over and over again. This is where we meet and that’s the secret to this whole thing. If we just get to know each other, if we will take time to know each other as human beings, men and women, girls and boys, husbands, wives, fathers, sons, daughters, mothers, if we just come here and get to know each other on a first name basis, we can overcome inequality. We can overcome racial inequity and it takes all of us. It takes all of us. We have to get involved. We have to speak up, but we have to listen first,” said Roy.

In his quest to speed up those changes, Roy said he understood that he needed to take the lead in hopes of others following right behind.

“I promise to speak up. I’m not going to be silent. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said this, he said, ‘in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but we will remember the silence of our friends. Well, this friend of yours will not be silenced. I will speak up. One of the hazards of being a white man is when the racist is around you, he let’s his guard down and he says stupid stuff. I have vowed and it happened, when Floyd was murdered that I would not be quiet anymore and it is not safe to say racist things around Jeremy Roy anymore. I will not be silenced anymore,” said Roy. 

Roy, Rev. AJ Malone Jr. and former Seguin Police Chief Terry Nichols are recognized for helping to create the Community Coalition. The coalition is a partnership between the Seguin Police Department and several members of the African American community, which started after the murder of George Floyd. The coalition has grown in membership and now boasts a wider coalition of community leaders, from all walks of life, who want to work together to make this community better for everyone.

Monday’s MLK Day celebrations wrapped up Seguin’s long-standing history of remembering the slain civil rights leader. This year’s four-day event got underway Thursday with a religious service, hosted by the Baptist Ministers Union and held at New St. James Baptist Church; a Seguin ISD Choir Showcase held Friday in the PAC at Seguin High School; and a MLK Gospel Fest musical service held on Sunday at New Life Fellowship Church.