"We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization."
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Ballad of Birmingham
“Mother 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.
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?”
The first word that comes to mind after reading "Ballad of Birmingham" is heartbreaking. The poem is about a little girl who dies in a church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. At the beginning of the poem, she asks her mother if she can go to a freedom march. Her mother thought the protest would be too dangerous for a little girl, so she suggests her daughter go to church. After the mother hears an explosion, she runs to the church that is now reduced to rubble and finds only her daughter's shoe. As if this wasn't heartbreaking enough, the little girl in the poem bathed, brushed her hair and dressed in her finest clothes to go to church only to be killed in an explosion instead. It was as if she was preparing for her death.
Another word that came to my mind after reading "Ballad in Birmingham" is injustice. The fact that an little girl died in an explosion in a place that should have been safe from such hate is just plain unfair. An innocent young girl should not have been the target of a bombing just because of the color of her skin. It is also unfair that for the rest of her life, the mother in the poem has to live with the fact that the church she suggested her daughter spend the day is where her daughter is ultimately killed.
I also thought of the word progress. The fact that a man of color could be elected president in a country where not long ago, a man of color would be routinely harrassed and assaulted by white supremacists shows that we have come a long way in this country. Of course there still remains racism and prejudice, but black churches in the South are not routinely being burned to the ground anymore. I couldn't imagine Barack Obama's daughters being subjected to the senseless violence the little girl in this story was subjected to.
All in all, this poem was in a word, "powerful." After reading it, I was so horrified by the tragic, senseless death of that little girl. On the other hand I felt proud to live in a country that could progress to a point where churches are no longer being burned or destroyed on a daily basis. The poem ultimately pushed me to a place where I want to see more progress being made in this country when it comes to civil rights, not only for African Americans, but also for any monority being treated unfairly.
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