An overview of this 1963 poem “Ballad of Birmingham” about the death of a girl in a church.
The paper describes how “Ballad of Birmingham” is a poem written about a mother that tells her daughter to not march in the streets and allows her to go to a church; sadly, the girl is killed at the church. The paper explains the racism against African Americans in 1963 and reveals that this actually happened in Birmingham to four innocent black girls.
“The Ballad of Birmingham is about a child that nags her mother to let her join the Freedom March. “Mother dear, may I go downtown instead of out to play, and march the streets of Birmingham in a Freedom March today” (Randall 1). This has a literal and a symbolic meaning to the poem. The meaning of the poem is that the little girl wants to join the Freedom March that they are having against racism. “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 (Randall 1). The mother knows that black children are being thrown in jail or abused by the police and she fears for her child. Next, the child tells her that other children will go with me and asks again if she can go. The mother tells her no because she is a afraid of the guns that police and others have, but the mother tells her that she can go to church.