Audible Voice - Ballad of Birmingham

Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall

“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.

She raced through the streets of Birmingham

Calling for her child.

She clasped through bits of glass and brick,

Then lifted out a shoe.

“O, here’s the shoe my baby wore,

But, baby, where are you?”

This poem by Dudley Randall has a very clear audible voice. It starts off as a conversation between mother and child debating about where the child should go for the day. The reader can completely follow the conversation of the small boy wanting to march for freedom and the mother’s fears against her child participating in such a dangerous event.

Then it changes to the speaker’s voice describing the mothers joy that her child ended up going to the church instead of the freedom march. The readers feel the mother’s peacefulness from knowing her child is safe inside “the sacred place” (Randall l. 22).

When the speaker describes the mother’s immense fear and sadness when she learned that her “baby” was in the church that was bombed, the readers clearly feel this too (Randall l. 33).

Randall’s audible voice was simply clear throughout his entire poem. To me, this was written so well it was like listening to a story. I did not feel like I was reading, but I could hear the speaker throughout the entire poem.