One would think that she would much rather play outside than march for her people. I think the mother would be the one who would want to go to the march to benefit her people. The mother fears for her child’s safety and sends her, to what she believes is a safe place, to church. In the end the church is bombed. The poem consists of eight, four-line stanzas.
Randall conveys the mother feelings about the streets of Birmingham to her daughter, in lines six through nine. “For the dogs are fierce and wild, / And clubs and hoses, guns and jail / Aren’t good for a little girl.” (Randall 796, Lines 6-9) Within these lines, as a historical critic, I can hear the desperation in the mother’s voice pleading to her child how unsafe it is to walk the streets of Birmingham. Therefore, as a historical critic I can parallel history of “Project C” to Randall’s poem. I have heard that churches typically offer a plethora of safety to a community through confidentiality. According to Andrews, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was used for meetings by Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Shutterworth, and Ralph
Her mother had to keep her family out of the dangers of active political protests like the Freedom March or she would lose her job and her freedom to continue to be in the white community. She goes to the church and sings in the children choir but something happens. A bomb explodes and kills the child in the church. This poem, by Dudley Randall, consists of four-line stanzas that follow the traditional folk ballad. The poem is an example of irony.
The fact that the mother fears for her child’s safety and sends her to what she believes is a safe place is ultimately where her daughter meets her demise. Another specific example of irony within the poem is the fact that her mother dresses her in her fancy church clothes, white gloves included, which is ultimately the dress in which one might be buried. In lines six and seven, the words “fierce,” “wild,” “clubs,” “hoses,” and “guns” all conjure up images of fights and riots. In stanza five, the images shift to those of a pure and innocent nature with the words “rose petal sweet.” The imagery shifts again causing a feeling of panic in stanza seven with the words “explosion” and “raced.” Randall uses musical devices to emphasize the effectiveness of the poem. Alliteration in used in the following examples: “for,” “fear,” and “fire” (14) and “wet” and “wild” (26).
Soon after, the mother hears the sound of a bomb explode and rushes out to make sure her child is ok. She goes to the church that is now “bits of glass and brick” and does not find her child, but finds her little girl’s shoe. The first thought that occurred when reading this poem was how dedicated even little children were to free their own people and how life was like in the sixties. The little girl wanted to march the streets of Birmingham instead of going out to play. The little girl had no fear even when her mother said there would be guns and jails, clubs and hoses, and dogs that were fierce and wild. She went on saying she wanted to make our country free.
Descriptive detail a. Ballads imagery 1. Purpose: The purpose of the imagery in “Ballad of Birmingham” is to describe the little girl’s innocence, and the mother’s fear of losing her loving daughter. The mother’s worry for her child is depicted throughout the ballad as the mother imagines how things would go horribly wrong if she’d let her girl go to the Freedom March, “No, baby, no, you may not go, For I fear those guns will fire”. The little girl’s innocence is depicted as she gets ready to go to church, for she obeys her mother’s orders. The white shoes give the reader a feeling of her innocence, white is a color that is usually implied to describe peace.
Ballad of Birmingham By Dudley Randall (On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963) “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.
This is best exemplified in the events that had happened to Cora Lee as a child, which carried on with her through adulthood and motherhood. The “Ballad of Birmingham” written by Dudley Randall is a poem written on the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The poem conveys a mother who is looking out for her young daughter who wants to go downtown to play. In fear of violence the mother says no and tell her daughter she can go to church, which she thinks is the safest place to be. The child got ready to go sing in the children’s choir and a few moments later the mother head an explosion.
In my questions for number 1, I think that it is not good enough because all her belongings and house is gone. There are so many questions on how she will build her life back together even if God helps her. For number 2, I think that it was an accidental fire from someone else because you can see that she hears the calls for fire. For number 3, I think that God will sort of nudge her to the right direction and not just give her everything she needs. For number 4, I think that because she is a puritan she thinks that everything happens for a reason.
From a religious standpoint they believe that when the fetus arrives it is a person. Most believe when the nervous system is made, because it can feel pain like an abortion. However this stage does not happen until the 6th or 7th month and abortion never occurs after the 24th week. Abortion is necessary because of the potential of existing circumstances that would be a detriment to the mother or fetus. The mother could be physically, mentally, or emotionally unwell and not capable of being pregnant or having a child without endangering her health; the pregnancy could have possibly been the result of a terrible crime, such as rape or incest; the fetus could be unhealthy and be a danger to the mother's health.