Progress, Storytelling, and Justice Theme Analysis

Ghost Boys follows the ghost of a 12-year-old Black boy, Jerome Rogers, in the months after a white police officer shoots Jerome while he’s playing outside with a toy gun. By also telling the story of historical figure Emmett Till, a Black boy who was murdered by a lynch mob in 1955, the novel shows how the U.S. has made progress toward racial equality since Emmett Till’s experience in the “Jim Crow” South—but not nearly enough progress. That is, while it is less common for white people in the U.S. to be consciously, unrepentantly, proudly racist now, the novel makes it clear that subconscious racism can and still does kill Black people. The only way to make more progress, Ghost Boys suggests, is to “bear witness” to Black victims of racist violence, sharing their stories so that everyone becomes consciously anti-racist.

Ghost Boys makes this point through the parallel stories of its protagonist, a 12-year-old Black boy named Jerome Rogers, and the real historical figure Emmett Till. Emmett, who was murdered because he supposedly whistled at a white woman, mentions that his killers never repented of murdering him and were never charged with murder. Jerome, haunting Officer Moore’s house, sees the man miserable and frequently drinking despite having avoided murder charges—and wonders whether Officer Moore’s guilt counts as “progress.” Ultimately, Jerome encourages Officer Moore’s daughter Sarah—a middle-schooler, horrified by her father’s actions, who is only living person able to see Jerome—to keep the story of his unjust killing alive so that more substantive progress can be made to end racist murders of Black children in the U.S. At the novel’s end, Jerome also speaks directly to readers, ordering them to “bear witness” to prevent more murders. This ending emphasizes that Ghost Boys exists to uproot subconscious racism and encourage anti-racism through storytelling.