Ballad Of Birmingham Essay

After telling her daughter she can go to the church, the mother gives her a bath in rose petal water, dresses her in her best clothes, and even gives her a pair of gloves to wear and little white shoes. This is the most ironic part of the intire poem because the mother believes she is sending her to a safe place, but is unaware of the fact, that she is doing the exact opposite

“But you may go to church instead” (Randall,15) a mother thought her child would be safer in such a sacred place rather than being a part of the march that just might have been safer. The poem “Ballad of Birmingham” by Dudley Randall, has multiple themes, but the one that sticks out is violence, which is because it is so powerful and brings the whole poem together. There is also a lot of imagery shown through this whole poem that can put a horrible picture in your head because of how sad the poem really is.

In the fictional novel, The Watsons Go To Birmingham there were several historically accurate cultures and events from the 1960’s. Most of the story is based on the mother wanting to go to Alabama, because that’s where her family is. However her husband doesn’t think it is a good idea because he knows there is segregation down in the south, and he doesn’t want his kids to see all the hatred for people of a different skin color. Their children have not been exposed the separation of different skin colors because they live in Flint, Michigan, where there is not a lot of conflicts about segregation. Yet, at some point the family decides to make the long trip to Birmingham. Before they leave for their trip, their dad goes and buys a record player

She sent her child to sing in the choir, in hopes she would be safe in God’s tabernacle, but instead, the child went to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church death trap. Secondly, I disagree with the way Dudley Randall ended the poem. Even though the reader can assume what happened to the child, the poem slightly leaves you with a cliffhanger. The child’s lifeless body cannot be found by her desperate and destitute mother. The audience can be left feeling melancholy and incomplete. Lastly, Randall, in my opinion, strategically wrote stanza five in the poem very well,“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”(Randall 19). Lastly, the white gloves and white shoes represent purity and innocence of the adolescent. The way the little girl brushes her black hair and bathes in sweet aromas represents the child’s vulnerability and how sweet the little things are in life.

Racism, riots, and civil unrest: these are the terms that define the 1960s to most. The ‘60s marked the height of the civil rights movement in the United States. With this, racial tension fell over the nation, but nowhere as heavily as Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham was the central battle ground for Martin Luther King Jr’s Birmingham Campaign, also known as Project “C”. During the Birmingham Campaign, Alabama was a hotbed for bombings, riots, and other civil rights movements; both violent and peaceful. To better understand this time period, I interviewed my mother Lynda Stanley. Lynda’s remarks, along with words from Martin Luther King Jr. and the book Equal Rights Under Law, have helped conclude that The Birmingham Campaign, while an emotionally charged and violent time, was a major step forward in the civil rights movement. However, Lynda’s words also suggest that we are in a state of regression – that the nation today is just as racially prejudice and violent as it was in 1960.

Martin Luther King Jr. does integrate variety of choice of words and language techniques in relaying his information. His work Letter to Birmingham remains an artistic masterpiece. He is very careful in the choice of words that he does select. Essentially, he utilized the art of pathos, logos and ethos deeply to persuade the readers, making theme emotional and inducing the act of understanding the message in an easier manner. Moreover, his choice of words does match and combats the oppression being faced by humanity at that time. His letter was a response to the clergymen on a call to remain united.

Dr. King main point in composing the Birmingham letter is that, racial isolation, or foul play to the African American culture, is because of the ceaseless consolation of the white American culture, especially the capable groups in legislative issues and religions. Dr. King guards his point all through the length of his letter, and the contentions that he has made to demonstrate that his theory is valid and substantial will be the concentration of this logical analysis. This letter was viewed as the start of the Civil Rights Movement. The way that MLK had gambled such a great amount to have a letter composed on an old daily paper be snuck out of prison and into the general population eye demonstrated that he genuinely needed change. The

culture here. The speaker is allowing the reader to make a mental picture of one

In the poem “Ballad of Birmingham”, by Dudley Randall, many different things can be analyzed. The difference in the two translations; one being a literal translation, telling the true meaning of the poem, and the other being a thematic translation, which tells the author’s theme and symbolism used in his/her work. Another thing that all poets have in common is the usage of poetic devices; such as similes, metaphors, and personification.

The words are chosen to provide pictures that contribute to the overall understanding of the gunner’s quick transition from life to death. The first example of this imagery occurs in line one with the third word of the poem, mother. This first picture shapes the entirety of the rest of the poem. Mothers are associated with life givers and protectors, so the image of a mother contrasts the brutality and violence that follows in lines two through four. It also provides the idea of being inside a metaphorical womb for line two; only, this womb is much less cozy and safe than that of a mother’s. The figurative womb that the bomber is in is indifferent towards the gunner and under perilous attack from “nightmare fighters” (4). The mother imagery also gives meaning to line five when it speaks of being washed out of the figurative womb with a hose. The poem is conveying the message that sending young people to fight a war is comparable to an abortion in that it ends life before giving a person a chance to really live. The life had come with hopes and ambitions, but he never had the opportunity to see them through. He did not get a life. After the gunner dies, he is discarded like an unwanted baby. The poem also produces an image of helpless newborn animals by choosing to describe fur in line two. This establishes an emotional appeal to readers’ pity as they visualize such a

The “Ballad of Birmingham is a shocking poem that was written by Dudley Randall about a bombing of an African American church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The bombing of the church was racially motivated and resulted in the death of four innocent African American girls and was the turning point in the United States 1960s Civil Rights Movement. In Dudley’s poem he has taken such a sad event and turned it into a poem showing the racially motivated terrorism that was occurring during that time frame. The poem is written in conversation form between a mother and her daughter where the daughter is asking to go the March on Birmingham and the mother is expressing her concerns about her

Poetry Essay Worksheet Violence occurs all over the world to people who least expect it. Sometimes people are at the wrong place at the right time, or right place and right time. Strangers often inflict pain, and sometimes death on the most random of people without reason. The most mind-wrenching would be getting harmed or killed by someone who is thought of as a friend, someone that is trusted. Not too often do people expect to be murdered by a loved one.

In order to occupy her child, the mother dresses her daughter up to go sing in the children’s choir at church in the fifth stanza. She brushes her hair, bathes her, and puts on her gloves and shoes. Randall appeals to the senses in this stanza; he uses a metaphor here to inform the reader a visual that the family is African American. She has “night-dark” hair and small brown hands. She is dressed in white and smells of sweet rose petals. The mother takes the girls mind off of the Freedom March and fixes it on the children’s choir. The tone is one of content. The sixth stanza is a

Police were unleashing dogs on children and families to try and stop them from marching any further. The dogs did as they were told and attacked the people. In the poem it says ‘for i fear the dogs are fierce and wild” which represents those actions. Police would also shoot at the marchers when they wouldn't listen to them. Innocent lives were taken

Mr.Randall wrote and published The Ballad of Birmingham on a broadside sheet, he called it a Broadside Press Publication to secure his copyright. Mr.Randall was known to be peaceful, and he felt that verse reaches out finished a great deal of topic. It was stated by a friend of Dudley Randall’s “He believed beauty is a wonderful, but beauty that served a function was even more beautiful. A function in the sense that it should inform and encourage. He said, ‘If you have a gift and don’t use it to help people, what is the point of your gift?’”.