Ballad of Birmingham The Ballad of Birmingham is a highly emotive poem, written by Dudley Randall which is set in the highly divided and segregated city of Birmingham Alabama in 1963. The primary aim of this poem is to depict both the horror and suffering associated with race relations in Birmingham in 1963.
This poem seeks to appeal to every single person regardless of race, gender, age, etc. The author does an excellent job in doing this by using a relationship in which we can all empathize with; that of mother and child. The foundation for the poem is that of a highly unsettling and horrifying final encounter between a loving mother and her daughter. We see the care the mother has for her child and wish to keep her safe telling her “no, baby, no, you may not go” to a Freedom March. Upon hearing her fear that the “guns may fire” we empathize with the mother’s decision to send her child to the church instead. We can then sense the mothers joy and love for her daughter as she sent her daughter to the “sacred place”. The subsequent passage outlines the mother racing wildly though the streets of Birmingham calling for her daughter only to find her shoe …show more content…
The mother “smiled to know her child was in the sacred place” yet it’s this very place that becomes the epicenter to which both lives are destroyed. The fact that it was here, and not on the streets of Birmingham where there were “clubs and hoses, guns and jails” is highly unsettling for the reader. The religious setting in which this heinous act occurs further adds to the horror and pain felt by the reader. It’s important to note the effective use of symbolism allows for such contradiction and effect. Early in the poem the Freedom March symbolizes all the danger and violence to which she wishes to keep her daughter safe from. The Church however and its children’s choir symbolize the safeness and security in which the mother sought to keep her
This poem seeks to appeal to every single person regardless of race, gender, age, etc. The author does an excellent job in doing this by using a relationship in which we can all empathize with; that of mother and child. The foundation for the poem is that of a highly unsettling and horrifying final encounter between a loving mother and her daughter. We see the care the mother has for her child and wish to keep her safe telling her “no, baby, no, you may not go” to a Freedom March. Upon hearing her fear that the “guns may fire” we empathize with the mother’s decision to send her child to the church instead. We can then sense the mothers joy and love for her daughter as she sent her daughter to the “sacred place”. The subsequent passage outlines the mother racing wildly though the streets of Birmingham calling for her daughter only to find her shoe …show more content…
The mother “smiled to know her child was in the sacred place” yet it’s this very place that becomes the epicenter to which both lives are destroyed. The fact that it was here, and not on the streets of Birmingham where there were “clubs and hoses, guns and jails” is highly unsettling for the reader. The religious setting in which this heinous act occurs further adds to the horror and pain felt by the reader. It’s important to note the effective use of symbolism allows for such contradiction and effect. Early in the poem the Freedom March symbolizes all the danger and violence to which she wishes to keep her daughter safe from. The Church however and its children’s choir symbolize the safeness and security in which the mother sought to keep her