The Ballad of Birmingham tells a bloody story of racism and hate and the way innocent children paid the price for the hate towards the community they were in. In 1963, while a peaceful march of Blacks was protesting for desegregation, a group of four hateful whites, Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., Herman Frank Cash, Robert Edward Chambliss, and Bobby Frank Cherry were planting bombs under the steps of The 16th Street Baptist Church. At 10:22, the bombs exploded, killing 4 black girls. They were Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14), and Carol Denise McNair (11). Described by Martin Luther King as “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity,” this bombing shows the bitter truth of racism towards the African American community. After the bombing, the black community was reeling and angry, while the White Supremacist groups were sickeningly happy there were four less innocent black girls in the world. However, people started to protest again, more determined and angry, showing that the people of America, even in the shadow of one of their worst tragedies, still fought back. Even children were rising up and calling for their freedom. Not only were people still fighting for fair in the 60s, but they are also now fighting for fair, 60 years later. This horrific moment was captured forever in the famous poem The Ballad of Birmingham, by Dudley Randall, who used it to fuel the determination of the African American community.
The Ballad of Birmingham painted a grim picture of 1960s America and used many things to display this. At the start of the poem, Randall has used the dialogue between mother and daughter just before they left for church to show the innocence of the little girl, as well as her already forming determination to help make America free. “May I go downtown, instead of out to play, and march the streets of Birmingham, in a Freedom March today?” after this, the mother responds by saying “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.” This uses assonance, where you rhyme multiple words in the same line to speed the reader up, and it shows how much the mother is worried about her baby and doesn’t want her down in the violence where she could be killed. After this, the poem changes to third-person narration, telling us how the innocent child gets ready for church, bathing in rose petals, combing her hair, draw white gloves on her small brown hands, and white shoes on her feet. This is the poem’s last chance to absolutely sell the fact that this about to be killed child does not deserve anything coming to her, and that she is the most harmless person you ould imagine an evil white supremacist targeting. And finally, in the most intentionally painful final three stanzas, the caring, loving Mother says goodbye to the innocent young Child for the last time and smiles thinking nothing can harm her in this sacred church, and when the explosion happens, Randall uses again assonance to show the panic on the mothers face as she searches for her child. All she finds is one shoe, her last connection with the Girl, and Randall uses narration once more as the mother calls out to her dead daughter, “Baby where are you?” and then the poem ends, showing her complete shock and sadness of this hateful act done by four white men.
Racism is still alive today, but so is the determination to stop it. In 2020 alone, there have been three waves of riots in the US alone, responding to three black men subjected to police brutality, two of them dying. In March, George Floyd died, being choked to death by police while pinned to the ground, despite posing no threat and telling them he couldn’t breathe. Rioters all over the world began rioting and fighting for justice. Floyd became a martyr, a symbol for the growing Black Lives Matter movement. Then, in June Rayshard Brooks was killed after police responded to him being drunk and asleep in front of a Wendys. He failed a sobriety test, and when the police attempted to handcuff him, he drunkenly fought them and ran away, but was shot dead in the back. This began the second wave of rioters. Now in August, Jacob Blake is in hospital after he turned away from the police that stopped his car, and while he walked back to his car to check on his children, police shot him seven times in the back in front of his three kids. This reignited the Black Lives Matter movement, with rioters all around the US. This shows that though things have changed in the world, racism still exists, and people are still trying to crush it. This is especially true for 2020, where even with a global pandemic, protesters still took to the streets to defend the African American community.
It isn’t just African Americans who are suffering from hatred and oppression. Other people have as well. In 2019 in New Zealand, a gunman called Terrance opened fire and killed 51 Muslims while they were praying at a Christchurch Mosk. This was once more an act of hate and racism, done at a holy place, just like Bermingham. This shows that not only racism is still alive towards blacks, it’s also alive towards other ethnic communities. Ever since this terrible attack, the world has given Muslims their support, and Terence was dealt a life sentence without parole. However, racism isn’t the only oppression the people of the world face. Other groups such as the LGBTQ+ community suffer from homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. Again though, they, just like African Americans did and still do, stand up against the hatred, having marches and protests similar to the Blacks did, even having a day of silence, where anyone can support them by not talking, similar to how many LGBTQ+ people live in today’s world, silent about their sexuality. All of this makes it clear that though people, many of them teenagers, suffer from abuse because of something about them, they are willing to be proud and stand up against it.
The Ballad of Birmingham at heart is a poem that shows how a single thing about a person can make them not only different but outright oppressed and abused by others. It also, however, shows that other people with the same difference can band together to challenge the fact that their difference is a problem, and sometimes they can turn the tide on the people calling it a problem, to the point wherein this day and age when a person calls it a problem, everyone around them disagrees. Dudley Randall didn’t just write it as a poem, because there is so much more to the story. It shows you the very worst and best of the Black and White conflict, how African Americans marched their cities streets for desegregation, and how in the shadows White Supremacists planted a bomb and killed innocent African Americans in retaliation. Now, things have changed, though less than most people think. African Americans still get harsher treatments by citizens and even police officers, and this still needs to change. In the words of Martin Luthor King’s granddaughter, “we are the generation that will finally crush oppression!” Now, with more and more people standing against oppression, whether that’s by supporting Black Lives Matter protests, doing a Day of Silence for the LGBTQ+ community, or even just showing your support for the Christchurch Terrorist Attack victims, and now, not so far in the future, we have a chance of finally ending oppression, and realizing the dreams of countless generations of oppressed people.
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