A Catholic Student on the Till Case
A CATHOLIC STUDENT ON THE TILL CASE The following editorial on the murder of Emmett Till was written by Roger Goebel, a Catholic student at Manhattan College, for Truth, a publication of Brooklyn's...
...they beat him, and then they shot him with cold steel bullets whose chill could not match the ice of their hearts...
...His name doesn't matter--it might have been Abel once...
...when you didn't save him from his slums and when you didn't give him an education like your own, when you made him take the poorest seats in your buses and wouldn't let him live in your neighborhood, when you made him a second-class citizen and a second-class man...
...he must have loved to be alive...
...They killed him because of a boastful voice and a cocky whistle...
...He might as well have been Slav, or a Jew, or a Puerto Rican, or any other whom the breath of prejudice taints...
...as quickly as you forget me...
...they murdered him because of the blackness of his skin, hut what blackness could ever match the blackness of their hearts...
...And now the hoy is dead and soon he'll be forgotten...
...And he was a boy...
...You let him die when you didn't fight to save him, not from death but in life...
...And soon you'll forget him...
...He was on his first holiday, a thousand miles from his Chicago home...
...and now you're forgetting him, just as you'll forget others like him...
...My brother is dead...
...Perhaps you knew him--he was your brother, too...
...You let him die...
...Perhaps you knew him--he was your brother, too...
...He was just boy, and he happened to be a Negro...
...He was just a boy, but he's dead now...
...it happened weeks ago, and you were not to blame...
...He wasn't really very important, and a murder in Mississippi certainly can't compare with the latest, raciest scandals in New York...
...They took him out in the dark of the night and led him away...
...Why are you so startled...
...A CATHOLIC STUDENT ON THE TILL CASE The following editorial on the murder of Emmett Till was written by Roger Goebel, a Catholic student at Manhattan College, for Truth, a publication of Brooklyn's Temple Beth Emeth: By Roger Goebel My brother is dead...
...they killed because he was "fresh"--they killed him because he was black...
...His name...
...You feel uncomfortable already, and wonder why I mention him...
...Now you're willing to give him justice, but you were never willing to give him love...
...They killed him...
...He must have been very proud of his years and of his self-reliance...
...You can't remember a murder--even the murder of a boy--forever...
...Well, he's dead now...
...But he was just a boy and he is dead now, and he was my brother and your brother, too...
...And you didn't kill him--but you let him die...
...He was just a boy, but he's dead now...
...He's dead, but he might as well have lived in the shadow of your indifference for 3 score years and 10...
...Have you forgotten him so soon...
...There are more important things now--wars and tensions and world crises...
...He was full of the wonderful feeling that comes when a boy becomes a man...
...I suppose you have forgotten him...
...He was only 14, just beginning to grow up...
...They were fools...
...And now he's dead...
...He's buried now, just as all news of him has been buried in the back columns of the newspapers...
...What's done is done, and who's dead is dead...
Vol. 39 • January 1956 • No. 5
