Clarity of how the poem is written helps the reader’s understanding of Dudley Randall’s “The Ballad of Birmingham,” which is based on the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement. In this poem, a child asks her mother if she may go on a freedom march, which is known to be a dangerous event, and the mother says the child may not go but may, instead, go to church, a perceived safe haven. The church is then bombed and the little girl dies tragically. The reader is able to get a better understanding of how gruesome and tragic the bombing was through the point of view, simple diction, and nursery rhyme rhythm.
In this poem there are three speakers that all give a different point of view of this horrific event during the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham,…