Do you like history and a good read? Well, Dudley Randall brings the two together in his adaptation of a historical event. Born in 1914 and died in 2000, Randall was an African-American poet. His most notable work is The Ballad of Birmingham, originally published in 1965. The poem was written in response to the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. “Ballad of Birmingham” concisely portrays a tragic event and manages to capture the mischievous and painful moments of the civil rights movement in a short poem about a mother and daughter. After “considering the extent to which the audience controls the form of the message,” I determined that this poem was written for all audiences. It is a beautiful poem that can be read by all people and is written for all people. No hateful or disrespectful language is used, just hurtful and innocent language. The poem is written not to show how angry and hateful blacks should be towards whites, but more importantly to grant remorse and sadness to those who read it. In “Ballad of Birmingham,” Dudley Randall makes us feel the pain he felt on the day of the accident and draws us into that day and moment through his use of story, imagery, irony, and symbolism. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayA young girl asks her mother for permission to march through the streets of Birmingham. The girl's mother forbids the child to go because it could be dangerous. The girl tries to convince her mother again by telling her that there are other children who will come with her. The mother still forbids her daughter to go and asks her to go only to church. The girl puts on white gloves and shoes and then leaves the house, the mother smiles with relief knowing that her daughter is in a safe place. Then, he hears an explosion and runs to the church to see what happened. The mother could not find her daughter in the ruins of the building; all he manages to save is one of his daughter's white shoes. On the surface, this poem is about a girl who wants to protest for freedom but her mother wants her to be safe so she sends her to church. While the girl is in church a bomb explodes and the girl is no longer able to return to her mother. Much history is needed to understand the “Ballad of Birmingham” in more detail. It's not just about the little girl and her mother, there's more to the story than just the surface. “Ballad of Birmingham” is a depiction of what might have happened between the mother and son of one of the girls who lost their lives on the day of the attack. What bombing you might ask, well, on September 15, 1963 “The 16th Street Church, which was the first and largest black church in Birmingham” was bombed by “a bomb placed in the basement of the church.” According to Lonnie Bunch “a moment the world will never forget”. Four girls lost their lives that day. The next day life continued as normal. No one spoke about it nor was there a moment of silence. Carolyn McKinstry, who was at church the day of the attack, thinks it was so because "there was nothing we could do about it." It was simply a way of life and they were black and not respected in society. “It didn't matter that black people were killed, that little girls were killed in Sunday school.” Black lives were available to white people, regardless of age. Even the police, who are supposed to protect all lives, acted as if there was nothing they could do. Simply nothing has been done to give closure to the families who lost achild in the bombings. “The community…did not think that white people would convict one of their own for the deaths of black children,” which remained true for 14 years until someone finally answered for the crime. This attack was not the only attack in Birmingham. According to Joiner, during this time, Birmingham, Alabama, was called "Bombingham" because there were "80 unsolved bombings in the city" and the church bombing was the only one solved. If you think deeper about what the poem might mean, you will find much more. First of all, she is a young girl, which we can deduce from the use of children and child to describe people of the daughter's age and the daughter herself. Times are so bad for people of color that younger generations feel the need to take part in order to make a difference. We usually think of adults as the guardians of children, but children come together to become the guardians of their people. Age no longer mattered because the stakes were higher and people of all ages needed to come together to make a change. During this time of hate and inequality, parents felt their children were safer in church than out on the streets with all the chaos. But on this horrible day in history, church was the least safe place to be. You are meant to feel safe in the house of God and the last thing you expect is for someone to stoop so low as to destroy the house of God. But on that day, Sunday 15th September in the year 1963, at 10.22am, church was the last place you wanted your children to be. The images increase feelings of regret and sadness in those who read them. According to Caldwell, the images used by Randall “illustrate the absolutely inhumane and destructive results of social and racial prejudice.” Poetry as a whole is imagery. It recalls the image and thought of a mother and child. Everyone can relate to the mother-daughter relationship or even just a mother's love for her child. The use of a mother and child makes the reader feel more connected to the poem and brings to mind the reader's mother. The description of the daughter preparing to go to church evokes a powerful image full of symbolism. “And rose petals wet softly, / And white gloves drawn on her little brown hands, / And white shoes on her feet.” White gloves, white shoes, small hands, sweet rose petals are the words chosen to describe the girl as she prepared to go to church. Words that have a meaning greater than the superficial one. Nothing harmful can come from small hands. The smell of roses is calming and is also known as the smell of holiness, associated with the smell of a saint. White gloves and white shoes, white chosen to represent goodness, innocence and purity. The girl's shoe found among "pieces of glass and bricks", without the girl in sight, represents the innocence lost in the destruction. A pure life lost and ruined by darkness and evil. Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows something that a character doesn't. “No, darling, no, you can't go, / Because dogs are wild and wild, / And clubs and hoses, guns and prisons / They're no good for a little child.” “No, darling, no, you can't go, / 'Cause I'm afraid those guns will go off. / But you could go to church instead / And sing in the children's choir. "The mother smiled knowing that her daughter / was in the sacred place, "Despite what the little girl has to say in objection to her mother, the mother remained true to her instincts by saying that her daughter was not safe on the street but further down the street. safe in the church, “the sacred place”. The mother only wanted her daughter to be safe during the time of chaos. Ultimately the mother's desire to want her.