Irony And Imagery In Ballad Of Birmingham, By Dudley Randall

On September 15, 1963, in an act of white supremacist terrorism, a bomb exploded inside of the Birmingham Church in Birmingham, Alabama, taking the lives of four young girls, and injuring several others. The violent crime caused public outrage and drew national attention towards the Civil Rights Movement. In the poem, Ballad of Birmingham, author Dudley Randall speaks in the perspective of a mother to one of the victims of the attack. His use of dialogue, a standard ballad form, and distinct rhyming pattern, makes this poem accessible to a large audience. Dudley Randall uses tragic irony and imagery in his poem, Ballad of Birmingham, to evoke emotion and narrate the unforeseen tragedy of the bombing of the Birmingham Church
Randall’s first

four stanzas involve simple, straight-forward dialogue between the mother and child, who are conversing about a freedom march in Birmingham, Alabama. By including a mother and child relationship, Randall is able to evoke emotion within the reader, who can put themselves in that perspective. The child politely asks to attend the march, but is quickly dismissed by her seemingly wise mother. In response to her child’s request, the mother says:
No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and horses, guns and jails
Aren’t good for a little child. (Randall 5-8)
Randall uses imagery of prison, guns, and violence, to give the impression that the mother has good judgment regarding the places her child is allowed to go. Fearing for her wellbeing, the mother tells her child, “But you may go to church instead / And sing in the children’s choir” (15-16). To the mother, the church is a symbol of safety, because she has only witnessed it as a place of worship, purity, and unity. Randall uses this dialogue to foreshadow the irony that will occur at the end of the narrative, as the reader can predict the child’s fate.
Randall characterizes the child’s innocence as he describes her carefully getting ready to attend church.

He says, “And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands / And white shoes on her feet” (19-20). The color white is innately positive, and commonly associated with purity, safety, and innocence, enhancing the symbolism of the church. This visual imagery reminds the reader that the child, although mature for requesting to march for freedom, is still young, small, and defenseless. By using this description of her appearance, Randall is able to evoke emotion from the reader, furthering the emotional impact of the ending. The juxtaposition of the child’s brown skin with her white clothing is also ironic in light of the horrific and senseless white on black crime that is about to unfold.
The mother smiles as the thought of her child being in the secure church, but the tone quickly shifts grief when, “that smile was the last smile / to come upon her face” (23-24). Although the child’s fate is not directly stated, her mother’s concern insinuates her death. The mother believed there was a place she could send her daughter to be safe from racial prejudice, but was proven wrong when the “sacred place” was targeted. There is tragic irony in the mother’s decision to send her to the church that day, as the child would have been saved if she had gone to the

march.
In his poem, Ballad of Birmingham, Dudley Randall evokes emotion and narrates the tragedy of the bombing of the Birmingham Church with his use of tragic irony and imagery. Through his use of mother and daughter perspective, Randall is able to capture the sorrow and trauma that the victim’s parents likely felt. This poem represents the use of poetry to provide an important historical lesson in a very approachable, yet powerful way. Although it barely describes the actual terrible event that happened in 1963, it leaves a lasting impression on the reader.