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  • 02.ballad of Birmingham - Dudley Randall

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    The poem tells the story of a mother who does not allow her child to participate in a civil rights march in Birmingham due to the dangers. The child instead goes to church, where there is a bombing. The mother frantically searches for her child and finds only her shoe, realizing her child has been killed. The poem conveys the tragedy of the loss of innocent life during the civil rights movement through the mother's perspective.

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    SUSHMITHA

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    The poem tells the story of a mother who does not allow her child to participate in a civil rights march in Birmingham due to the dangers. The child instead goes to church, where there is a bombing. The mother frantically searches for her child and finds only her shoe, realizing her child has been killed. The poem conveys the tragedy of the loss of innocent life during the civil rights movement through the mother's perspective.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    10 views5 pages

    02.ballad of Birmingham - Dudley Randall

    Uploaded by

    sushmithamary4
    The poem tells the story of a mother who does not allow her child to participate in a civil rights march in Birmingham due to the dangers. The child instead goes to church, where there is a bombing. The mother frantically searches for her child and finds only her shoe, realizing her child has been killed. The poem conveys the tragedy of the loss of innocent life during the civil rights movement through the mother's perspective.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 5

    02.

    BALLAD OF BIRMINGHAM
    _ DUDLEY RANDALL
    Come round by my side and
    I’II sing you a song
    I’ll sing it so softly ,it’ll do
    No one wrong.

    On Birmingham Sunday the


    Blood ran like wine,
    And the choirs kept singing
    Of freedom.

    ‘’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 jail
    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 in 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 herface.
    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?’’

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