The Poem Ballad Of Birmingham By Dudley Randall

Ballad of Birmingham

In the poem ‘Ballad of Birmingham’ By Dudley Randall, written in 1969, it expresses a powerful feeling of being a victim of a brutal act of racism, it is about a church that was bombed in 1963. I think the poet features irony, repetition and symbolism to express how heart-wrenching racism and discrimination was shown back in the 1960’s. He focuses on how the 1960’s Martin Luther King had rallies and freedom marches to free the African American people from discrimination and segregation.

Mr. Randall starts off with a dialogue describing an African-American mother and her daughter conversing about a “Freedom March” in the streets of Birmingham, Alabama. The child asks permission to participate in the march with other children, but her mother is afraid something bad could happen and she rejects and describes the dangers that could happen in the freedom marchers. Instead, the mother sends her child to church, which is to be a sacred place for her daughter. Soon, after the daughter leaves for church, an explosion is heard. The mother cries racing to the church to find her child and unfortunately discovers that her daughter’s life has been taken from her in violent act of racism. After all, the mother must accept the loss of her child.

The child wanted to march the freedom march but the mother decision was to rather to let her daughter go to church, the mother thinks the church was a sacred place to go but it was the most dangerous. It was sad that before she left to the church it was the last time she saw her daughter smile. It seems odd how a child would even know what a freedom march is, but I think this would be considered normal back in the early 1960's during the civil rights movement, It also seems very ironic that the young child is acting like an adult in this