We named the Seabrook Community of Prayer in honor of J.J. Seabrook, a prominent black pastor and educator who gave his life for the cause of reconciliation in Austin in 1975. At that time white businessmen were pressuring the City Council in Austin to "un-rename" MLK Jr. St., which had been 19th Street, and ran past the University of Texas, across the racial dividing barrier of IH-35, and into black East Austin. On May 1, 1975 there was a public hearing to consider the possibility of only retaining the name "MLK Jr. St." east of the Interstate, leaving it "19th St." west by the campus. At the meeting Dr. Seabrook, who had been the first permanent president of Huston-Tillotson College in Austin and had pastored many churches across the Southern United States, made a uniquely passionate appeal that such a decision would denigrate the memory of a man who had dedicated his life to crossing barriers such as IH-35. As the American-Statesman reported:

... the 76-year-old Seabrook walked slowly to the microphone and, sounding like the minister he had once been, thundered for the council to keep the name of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But as he recounted the early days of civil rights struggles here, describing how restaurants and lunch counters were opened to blacks, his voice trailed off and he slumped to the floor.

Dr. Seabrook had suffered a heart attack or stroke as he was addressing the council, and despite efforts to revive him he was pronounced dead at Brackenridge Hospital that evening. As Mayer-elect Jeff Friedman said, "the city lost one of its finest citizens" ... and yet in losing his life Dr. Seabrook won the last battle for reconciliation, for the City Council called off the hearings and to this day in Austin the street is Martin Luther King, Jr. Street from the east side across IH-35 all the way to the west side.

We desire that the love for God, passion for reconciliation, eloquence of speech & life, and spirit of self-sacrifice that gripped Dr. Seabrook would rest upon each group and person in the Seabrook Center, and that our words & actions in the building that bears his name would honor his legacy.