Ballad of Birmingham – Dudley Randall

The poem Ballad of Birmingham is about a child that was sent to church instead of protesting for African American freedom. Her mother just wanted to keep her child safe from the brutal, chaotic world she lived in. She later found out that there is no escape to the chaos and violence of this world. The church that she had just sent her child to had been blown up by the barbaric people that wanted to create chaos and violence. This quote ‘she has combed and brushed her night-dark hair’ is the moment the poem changed from first-person narration to third-person narration. This quote is showing how much care and time the little girl puts into her appearance. It shows that the girl likes to look neat and tidy when she goes out in the public. Some phrases that make me think of the girl as sweet and innocent are: ‘mother dear’ this shows the respect she has for her mother and that she is a child that loves her mother. ‘May I go downtown instead of out to play, and march the streets of Birmingham in a freedom march today’ this shows that she is wise for her age and cares about the rights of everyone and wants to make an equal society. ‘To make our country free’ this means she knows that the world isn’t always amazing and she can see that there needs to be a change. ‘Drawn white gloves on her small brown hands’ white gloves symbolise purity and they are very mannerly, it is also showing that she covers up going out into the world. When she says ‘small brown hands’ it’s telling us that she is still an innocent child. Having dialogue and narration in the same poem is a very clever skill used by Dudley Randall because he is showing the mother and daughters views and thoughts and then it moves onto his views of what is happening. It gives you two perspectives on what happened in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963 for this family.