15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
(C - cycle)  July  11,  2010

The obituary section of the newspaper has been called ‘the senior citizens’ sports page.’ Let’s see who I outlived today. I read obituaries with interest, especially the ones about parishioners and other people I know. I also like to peruse the New York Times death notices about prominent people. They’re like mini-biographies.

 

A recent one’s headline captured my interest:: “William Taylor, 78, dies; vigorous rights defender.” Taylor wasn’t his real last name. His parents were Lithuanian immigrants who had fled from Hitler. Because he was a Jew, some of his grammar school classmates pushed him around and called him a Christ-killer. Experiencing prejudice early, he fought against it all his life.

 

He first became aware of prejudice against blacks when he heard fans cursing Jackie Robinson, the first player to cross baseball’s color line. After Taylor’s graduation from Brooklyn College, officials of the college---his own school---urged the federal government not to hire him because “he espoused liberal causes such as the rights of the Negro in the south.”

 

Did he ever espouse that cause! A brilliant Yale Law School graduate, he could have made a fortune,, but he chose the low-paying satisfaction of helping victims of discrimination. He played an important part in the desegregation of the Little Rock, Arkansas and the St. Louis Missouri school systems. He was a major contributor to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. He fought doggedly against efforts to bring segregation back. Thanks in large measure to him; thousands of black children finally had access to quality education, millions of black citizens finally achieved full civil rights.

 

In 2001, Brooklyn College awarded William Taylor an honorary degree in a ceremony, the Times said, was marked by “pride and contrition.” The college president called him “a person who represents what this institution is about.”  Unlike the lawyer in the gospel, he didn’t ask “who is my neighbor? Unlike the priest and the levite, he didn’t bypass victims. He crossed the road to help. Brooklyn College on that day 50 years after his graduation named him Doctor of Laws. Jesus might have called him a Good Samaritan.