Thomas Coy was born in Flint, Michigan and raised in the Flint area. In 1968 as a freshman at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor he became disillusioned by the Vietnam War and quit college after completing one semester. In 1969 he participated in two anti-war demonstrations in Washington, D.C., began experimenting with illegal drugs, and traveled to four pop festivals including the Woodstock Festival in New York.

Tom’s nineteenth year was turbulent and a reality check, because he was arrested twice in 1970. The first arrest was during a peaceful demonstration at Greynolds Park in North Miami. The second arrest was in Michigan for possession of Marijuana. Tom pleaded guilty to use of Marijuana and served five weekends in the Livingston County Jail. Jail was not the residence Tom wanted to occupy again. During the spring of 1971 Tom traveled back to Washington, D.C. to support the Dewey Canyon III anti-war demonstration by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In May he organized an antiwar demonstration in Flint with bands and speakers, and in June he joined with other Flint area people to start an underground newspaper called The Freedom Reader.

In 1973 with the national media showing the failure and tragedies of the Vietnam War Tom no longer felt led to work on an underground newspaper and he entered into a carpentry apprenticeship. Tom married in 1974, completed his carpentry apprenticeship in 1977 and received an Associate Science Degree for Construction Technology with high honors in 1978. About half of Tom’s construction career was in positions of carpenter foreman or job superintendent. While working in the construction industry Tom also served in his local carpenters union for seven years in positions of recording secretary and delegate to the regional council.

Activism continued to motivate Tom. In the early 1980s he produced a couple radio specials on protest songs and in 1993 he formed a non-profit corporation called Truth Search to lobby against the North American Free Trade Agreement. The late 1980s was a turning point for Tom when his search for truth reexamined the life and teachings of Jesus. Tom became a born-again Christian after concluding that Jesus was who he and his disciples said he was. In 2001 Tom founded the Genesee Valley Men of Christ in response to a Promise Keeper event urging racial reconciliation within the Christian community. When he went back to college after retirement Tom organized a student organization in 2004 to bring Christian perspectives to the campus, and at his local church Tom has served for nine years as the coordinator of a Friday night teen center. In response to the general misinformation on sexual orientation change, Tom formed Truth Search Productions in 2006 to produce and distribute an accurate documentary on the Christian ex-gay movement.

Tom’s personal life has had its own ups and downs, including two marriages and two divorces. Tom has five children and his grandchildren call him “papa Tom.” Since retiring from the construction industry Tom has earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with high honors from the University of Michigan-Flint. He majored in economics and minored in political science, and is currently working on a master’s thesis.

Copyright 2008