The Ballad of Birmingham

I recently watched the movie Selma in my FYS class.  This movie opens with Martin Luther King Jr. winning his Noble Peace Prize, a black woman struggling to earn her “right” to vote, and a church bombing that resulted in the death of four young girls.  Immediately, I was reminded of a poem I studied in my senior year English class.  The poem is called “The Ballad of Birmingham” by Dudley Randall, and I printed it below for your convenience.

“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.”

“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.

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.

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?”

This first time I read this poem, I remember getting chills.  My entire high school classroom was sitting there in silence, just thinking, letting what we read sink in.  This incident, the bombing at Birmingham, was only 53 years ago.  This may seem like a long time, but I know plenty of girls whose dads are 53 years old – or older.  This amount of time – 53 years – really isn’t that long in the grand scheme of things.  I’d like to say that racism has lessened since this incident, but has it really?  Innocent lives are still being taken; blacks are stick forced to pay the price for the color of their skin.  Hopefully it won’t take another 53 years for a difference to be made.