Ballad of Birmingham

Ballad of Birmingham

Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall is a poem about a mother who refuses to let her child participate in a Freedom March because it isn’t safe. Instead, she tells the child she can go to church, where she ultimately loses her life. The message in this poem is that despite the mother’s attempts to keep her daughter in a safe environment, she really couldn’t control what happened. No matter how much we try to protect loved ones and ensure their safety, ultimately we are not in control and cannot always protect those we love.

In the poem, the mother continually tells her young daughter she cannot go to the Freedom March. She backs this up with many reasons, telling the child, “the dogs are fierce and wild, and clubs and hoses, guns and jails aren’t good for a little child.” When the child persists, and states her own reasons that she wants to participate “and march the streets of Birmingham to make our country free,” the mother again tells her no. She offers up more reasons, stating “I fear those guns will fire.” As an alternative, she tells her daughter she may, “go to church instead and sing in the children’s choir.” The mother refers to this as a “sacred place” and a much safer alternative than marching through the streets of Birmingham for a Freedom March. Ironically, despite this mother’s best attempts to send her child to a safe and protected environment, she instead sends her to the place that is going to be bombed. Had the mother let her participate in the Freedom March, she very well might have still been alive. Instead, her mother races to the sight of the bombing and finds the show she had put on her daughter earlier when she was helping get her ready to go to the church to sing in the choir.

Like many ballads, this poem gives you a sense of impending doom. When the mother keeps telling the daughter why she must go to church instead, we begin to sense something bad will happen at the church. This is further emphasized when...