Ballad of Birmingham By Dudley Randell
“Ballad of Birmingham” was written as a response to the 1963 bombing at the 16th street baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama. The congregation at the time was predominantly black and therefore targeted by the Klu Klux Klan (KKK). Four girls all under the age of 15 were killed and many others were injured in the attack. This bombing was the third in 11 days. Shockingly the men who committed this repulsive act were only fully convicted in 2002.
“Ballad of Birmingham’ is a poem about an African-American mother and daughter. The poem starts as a sweet, innocent conversation between the two and ends in a terrible act of racial violence. The mother and daughter were conversing about attending a ‘freedom march’ in the streets of Birmingham. The mother objected strongly to this and told her daughter she could not attend ‘for the dogs are fierce and wild.’ In this context the dogs are referring to the dangerous hate groups.
The mother tells her child that they shall go to church instead of attending the march as church is seen as a safe place. Not too long after they arrive at the church an explosion is heard and the daughter’s life unfortunately was taken. The bombing in the church is quite ironic as the mother had told her child to not go to a freedom march as it was dangerous but to go to church instead. Through “Ballad of Birmingham” we are told and reminded that not even the love from a mother or the walls of a church can keep children safe from an extraordinary, fatal act of hate.
Dudley Randell used alliteration such as ‘she clawed through bits of brick and glass’ this alliteration is plosive and has a hard sound reiterating the harsh sound of the explosion. The verb clawed is also important as it tells us as the reader that the mother was desperate to find anything left of her daughter.
In the poem, Dudley uses dialogue and narration so we as readers can fully understand what is going on and so we can understand the characters and their experiences. In the end it suddenly switches to the mother speaking where she is asking where she asks where her ‘baby’ has gone. This sudden change from narration to dialogue makes us, as readers, feel incredible amounts of sympathy for the mother.
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