The Ballard of Birmingham, Reaction Paper Example

Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham” is a disturbing and gloomy portrayal of white American hatred and racist beliefs towards blacks, a mother’s fear and anguish while attempting to search for her missing child and one of four young lives lost of innocence (Davis 1993).Randall shrewdly uses the first four stanzas to portray both the virtue and the purity of the young girl who innocently requests of her mother to be with her friends who have planned to “march the streets of Birmingham”. The impression I received from this was that the child, despite stating that she wants “to make our country free”, in no way realizes what the gathering signifies, nor the potential negative impact the authorities might develop towards such a march. The child’s mother, however, is wise enough to inform her child to abstain from the march and go to church instead, believing that such a sacred dwelling is more than sufficiently safe for her daughter to be present at.Paradoxically Randall draws the reader’s attention to the young girl’s wearing of both white gloves and white shoes whilst dressing in preparation to attending church. I found these sentences the most troubling as the act of wearing white would have caused white supremist anger and subsequent racism to be both intensified and justified in their perverse and destructive reactions.Randall has intentionally captured the anti-social and darkhatred the white man has towards black people with the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham back in September 1963 (Davis 1993)after the absolution of segregation. The racist loathing is pointedly countered by the young girl’s gorgeous manner, and her mother’s paternal care and guidance in the early stanzas of the poem. Randall saves his most harrowing passage for his last stanza where the reader can only arrive to the morbid conclusion that the young girl has lost her life to homicide. I could only wonder what the mother would have unfortunately experienced whilst frantically looking for the whereabouts of her lost child, and even more so after finding one of her worn white shoes.

Reference

Davis, A.Y., “Remembering Carole, Cynthia, Addie Mae & Denise”, Essence, Sep.1993, Vol. 24, Issue 5, p92, 9311080417.