Ballad of Birmingham

History of the Event:

Bombing of Birmingham Church

History of the Author:

Dudley Randall

• Racial relations in the segregated South were marked by continued violence and inequality
• September 15, 1963 a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama
• The church acted as a meeting place for Civil Rights leaders
• 4 young black girls died while many others were injured
• The outrage that the incident created and the violent clash between protesters and police that followed the bombing, helped draw national attention to the hard-fought, often dangerous struggle for civil rights for African Americans
• Alabama was one of the most racially discriminatory and segregated cities in the United States in the 1960's
• Had one of the strongest and most violent chapters of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

The Four Girls Who Died in the Bombing

• Born Dudley Felker Randall
• Born January 14, 1914 in Washington, D.C.
• Both parents were educated, mother, a teacher and father, a minister and involved in politics
• First recalled poem was written at the age of 4, after a band concert
• At age 13, he got his work published in the local newspaper for the first time
• Graduated high school at age 16
• Was inducted into the U.S. Army Air Corps in July of 1943 and served in the South Pacific as a supply sergeant in the Signal Corps
• After World War I, he went back to school and obtained a Bachelor's Degree in English and a Master's Degree in Literary Science
• Was inspired by the Civil Rights Movement
• Wrote on account of two historical events: the bombing of Birmingham and the assassination of President Kennedy

Addie Mae Collins, 14, Cynthia Wesley, 14 Denise McNair, 11, Carole Robertson, 14,

What's Happening in the Poem:

Birmingham Analysis

How the Bombing Affected The United States During this Time

In Relation to,

• Dialogue between a mother and her daughter reveals 2 things:
• 1. The daughter wants permission to go to the church to participate in a freedom march
• 2. The threat of violence in their community was heavy
• Instead of participating in the march, she is sent to church instead, she is supposed to be safe from the protestors and violence there - *IRONIC*
• Mother then hears a bombing after sending her daughter to the church, she runs there and searches through the rubble, she only finds one of her daughter's shoes.
• Randall wanted the meaning of the poem to be very clear, emphasizing the tragedy that occurred

• Was one of the deadliest acts of violence to take place during the Civil Rights movement and evoked criticism and outrage from around the world
• Aftermath of the bombing, riots and violent demonstrations broke out throughout Birmingham, resulting in the death of two young black boys
• Robert Chambliss, an active member of the Ku Klux Klan, was arrested and charged with murder and the possession of dynamite without a permit along with two others
• "Previously served as a central meeting place and staging ground for Civil Rights activities, was intended to stall the progression of the Civil Rights movement; however, the tragedy had the opposite effect, galvanizing support and propelling the movement forward"

"Ballad of Birmingham"

By: Dudley Randall

Citations

• "Dudley Randall Biography - A Poet from an Early Age, Civil Rights Movement Inspired Randall, Broadside Press Published Black Poetry." - JRank Articles. Biographies. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.
• "Birmingham Bombing (Sixteenth Street Baptist Church)." Birmingham Bombing (Sixteenth Street Baptist Church). Civil Rights Digital Library. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.
• "Birmingham Church Bombing." History.com. A&E Television Networks. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.
• "Klan Bombing of Birmingham Church 1963." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.
• Morrison, Toni. Jazz. New York: Knopf, 1992. Print.
• "September 15, 1963: Four Black Girls Killed in Bombing of Birmingham, Alabama, Church." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.

The mother smiled to know her child

Was in the sacred place,

But that smile was the last smile

To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,

Her eyes grew wet and wild.

She raced through the streets of Birmingham

Calling for her child.

(8) She clawed through bits of glass and brick,

Then lifted out a shoe.

“O, here’s the shoe my baby wore,

But, baby, where are you?”

“But, mother, I won’t be alone.

Other children will go with me,

And march the streets of Birmingham

To make our country free.”

“No, baby, no, you may not go,

For I fear those guns will fire.

But you may go to church instead

And sing in the children’s choir.”

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,

And bathed rose petal sweet,

And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,

And white shoes on her feet.

Made the Newspaper Headlines

(1) “Mother dear, may I go downtown

Instead of out to play,

And march the streets of Birmingham

In a Freedom March today?”

“No, baby, no, you may not go,

For the dogs are fierce and wild,

And clubs and hoses, guns and jails

Aren’t good for a little child.”

The "Ballad of Birmingham" was written by Randall after the bombing that took place in 1963, right in the heart of the Civil Rights Movement. However, violent attacks occurred prior to the bombing, as well as after, emphasizing the racial discriminatory that existed in the United States. The violence from the white people is racially founded upon the African American race. They mistreated them for their own benefit, selling them for labor and treating them as equivalent to animals. The violence that was portrayed upon these people eventually became reflected on each other, as well. This is well depicted in Toni Morrison's novel, Jazz which takes place in the 1920's, well before the bombing of the church took place. However, this story of violence rules out the white race and actually exemplifies the violence that occurs within the black race. Three main characters, Joe, Violet and Dorcas, find themselves stuck in a love triangle. Once Dorcas finds herself moving on from Joe, he shoots her, she bleeds out and she dies. At her funeral, Violet, Joe's wife, slashes Dorcas's corpse, creating a new nickname for herself, "Violent." Although Joe feels badly over the death of his lover, the violence he portrayed was influenced by his inability to control his feelings, his anger. This violence between each other as well as the outside races really constituted for a violent lifestyle and a mistreatment of all the innocent, especially the four little black girls who died in the church bombing. Violence is a main element to the journey of equality that took place for the black race in the early to mid twentieth century.

*Read left to right (stanza 1-8)*

Alabama

September 16, 1963

Ballad of Birmingham

Dudley Randall