The “Ballad Of Birmingham”: A Battle Cry For Desegregation

Being discriminated based on the colour of one’s skin is agonizing. Let alone, being targeted by a state government and a majority of its citizen can cause insurmountable mental and physical pain to a person and race. While this concept may seem like a period of history that is stowed away into the pages of a history book of American history, the diverse and intense remanence is still being remembered in modern times. The Civil Rights Movement can be argued to be on the most influential and remembered periods in United States history. While this movement is well documented by radio and television reports, another important, yet lesser known, documentation is the works of literature written during this period. Many authors, like Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Paule Marshall, and Lorraine Hansberry, influenced their audiences to participate and support the Civil Rights Movement. This inspiration could come from a variety of different events and circumstances like freedom marches, bombings, lynchings, or boycotts. One Civil Rights Movement author that is famous for writing works of literature during that time is Dudley Randall. The “Ballad of Birmingham,” a poem, is one of Randall’s works that was inspired by one of the many horrific and surprising conflicts that ignited from the racial tension in America: the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing. In this poem, Randall explains the historical and social context of the Civil Rights Movement while also including several uses of poetic elements to convey the poem’s main point: to persuade the audience to support the Civil Rights Movement. While the works of literature are haunted by the many innocent lives that were so tragically taken, having the essence of a large group’s emotions, thoughts, and ideas about a specific concept wrapped up in a poem are significant; therefore, a poem, while a piece of fiction, can be analyzed for clues to the author’s assertions about complex topics.

“The Ballad of Birmingham” is a wonderful poem that characterizes the historical and social context during the Civil Rights Movement. Many elements of the Dudley Randall’s work of literature are used throughout the poem. These poetic elements combine to communicate the poem’s main point: to persuade the readers to support the Civil Rights Movement. One of the numerous fundamentals in Randall’s work is the use of tone. Randall uses a melancholy tone in the poem by using a variety of diction and themes which has a connotation that triggers a depressed mood for the audience; since the poem is about the Bombing. A main way the poem contains historical and social contexts is by using allusions. “Freedom March” is an example of a direct allusion to the Civil Rights Movement (Randall). Another element in the poem is the use of the ballad form that is extremely helpful in persuading the readers. This form of poetry is easier to comprehend for the common citizens. Since most African Americans were in segregated schools that did not even compare to the quality of white schools, they did not get the best education; thus, educationally, African Americans could not read as well. This ballad “incorporates dialogue, understandable historical allusions, and…stock characters” to successfully persuade the audience to support the Civil Rights Movement by using non-complex poetic elements (Semansky). 

Overall, the poetic elements in the “Ballad of Birmingham” combine to support the author’s main point. When living in a country that is diverse in its culture and morals, conflicts can arise based on differences between two cultural groups. Mainly, the issues that arise, from two different groups, are concentrated on many sociocultural differences. In many cases, the Civil Rights Movement is an example of two culturally different groups clashing: the white supremacists and the African Americans and their supporters. Historically, many of these confrontations ended in violence. Dudley Randall, after the bombing, was asked to write a poem reflecting on the event by the editor of a magazine: “The Ballad of Birmingham” (Boyd). In this poem, Randall describes a little girl, in the poem, trying to convince her mother to let her participate in the freedom marches in Birmingham (Randall). The freedom marches mentioned in this poem is the literal allusion to the freedom marches that were occurring. Many of these marches were filled with extreme violence. The mother describes the freedom marches, to explain that the marches are too dangerous for a child, as filled with fierce police forces riding “horses” and wielding “guns” and “clubs” ready to throw any African American citizen, any age, into “jail” (Randall). Freedom marches evolved the author’s tone and purpose of this poem. Randall used freedom marches to make the readers have a realization of the fiercest clashes during the freedom marches to draw out a depressed emotion. For example, a well-documented march that occurred in Birmingham, Alabama where the Mayor, Bull Connor, ordered the police forces to aim high-powered fire hoses to any protestors, even children in Sunday school clothes (Ransdell). If trying to stop the marchers with a diverse set of methods were not enough, jailing the marchers was in the arsenal, as well. According to a publication in the California Law Review, once the local penitentiary filled to maximum capacity, temporary cells were constructed at the fairgrounds, which housed the children that were arrested (Anderson). 

The mother in the poem is afraid that her child might be the one that gets fired at by a high-powered water hose and arrested. Instead, she tells her child she would be safe by going to church to “sing in the children’s choir (Randall). This decision rolls into the main topic that is mentioned in the “Ballad of Birmingham,” the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing. The bombing was an attack on the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama carried out by three white nationalists—Robert Chambliss, Thomas Blanton, and Bobby Frank Cherry. Explosives, that were placed under the steps of the church, detonated killing four young girls and permanently blinding one other (“16th Street Baptist Church Bombing (1963)”). The murders of the four girls are represented in this poem. Once supposedly safe in the church, the mother feels relief. Next, an explosion erupts in the church building. Immediately the mother reacts by searching through the rubble, “bits of glass and brick,” to find her daughter (Randall). After combing through the debris, the only thing the mother could finally discover was a shoe; however, this is not just any shoe. The mother realizes it was her daughter’s shoe by saying, ‘O, here’s the shoe my baby wore, but, baby, where are you?’ (Randall). Thus, from this emotional question, the audience infers that the “baby” has died of the percussion from the blast (Randall). 

All the historical context within the “Ballad of Birmingham” was directly influenced by the actual events that occurred surrounding the Civil Rights Movement. The author, Dudley Randall, used the historical allusion to not only inform the citizens of the United States about the violence that is occurring due to racial discrimination but to rally his audience to support the Civil Rights Movement. Actual recorded events, including the actions of people, are recorded in history, but the dramatic and erotic emotions of people, during times of trouble, can be difficult to accurately and effectively record in history textbooks. By writing literature during the Civil Rights Movement, the sociocultural and emotional actions and morals of the different sides can be understood. When the mother in the poem warns her child of the impending dangers of the freedom marches, the raw emotions of the protestors are captured within the poem. Even the little girl knows the main point or concept of the freedom march: “to make…[the] country free [of racial discrimination]” (Randall). Many instances in Birmingham worked in a metaphorical synchrony to anger and rally the African American community to support the Civil Rights Movement. After only taking so much discrimination, several hundred blacks protested in the street, resulting in two African Americans being killed. One of those blacks was thirteen-year-old African American “Virgil Wade…was attacked and killed by a group of Caucasians, while riding his bike” in his community (Hochman). The other fatality included a teenager being shot in the back by police as he ran away (Hochman). Dudley Randall uses a variety of diction to convey the danger of the freedom marches, because of white supremacist and police, during those times by showing the mother’s heartfelt fear. Another main point that this poem indirectly addresses is the amount of safety the African American community. 

In the “Ballad of Birmingham,” the mother wants to make her child go to church to participate in the choir to not risk the well-being of the daughter. In that mother’s mind, the church was another refuge from the storm swirling and growing inside of Birmingham. As the readers know, the church, at the end of the poem, is no longer a neutral area of racial discrimination due it being targeted in a racially targeted attack. In many cases, even the homes of some African Americans were bombed, including the home of Civil Rights Movement leader, Martin Luther King, Jr (Eskew). African Americans all around the United States felt unsafe outside their own homes. While the Civil Rights Movement may be a time in history that seems very concrete in the ways it was documented, this time period was also documented in literary works that not only capsulated the historical context but also the social context. Dudley Randall incorporated many poetic elements into the poem along with historical and social contexts that boosted the poem’s main theme: to persuade readers to support the Civil Rights Movement. This poem will forever be an example of what literature can do to change the course of a nation.