Critical Analysis of Ballad of Birminghamm

Critical Analysis of “Ballad of Birmingham”

In the “Ballad of Birmingham”, Dudley Randall uses irony and tone to describe a mother’s choice when it comes to protecting her child during the Civil Rights Movement. The poem tells the story of the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, where four young girls were killed during the Civil Rights Movement. The poem is told from the perspective of the mother of one of the young girls killed in the church bombing. The mother thinks that she is sending her daughter to a safe place but it ends up being the last time the mother ever sees her daughter again.

There is irony in the beginning of the poem. The irony begins with the daughter wanting to go to the Freedom March. Most of the people that were involved in the Freedom Marches were adults. The child was making a decision that normally would have been made by an adult. The child wanted “to make our country free”. The child wanted to help African Americans by joining the Freedom March in downtown Birmingham. The child wanted to do her part and get equal rights for all African Americans in the United States.

The tone of the poem is overprotection because the mother wanted to protect her child from all the violence that normally happened during the peaceful Freedom Marches. The mother

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wanted her daughter to be safe. She felt as though that her child going to church “and sing in the children’s choir,” would be a safe alternative than going to the Freedom March. The mother believes that the church is a safe place for her child to go. The church in the African American community has always been looked at as a sacred and safe haven from all the violence that was going on during the Civil Rights Movement. The irony is that the church was supposed to be a safe place and ends up being the worst possible place for the mother to send her child to because the church was bombed and her child died. However, the mother makes sure that her daughter is...