Balliad of Bermingham

Dalton 1

Dalton

ENGL 1302

March 17, 2005

Safety and Irony

Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham” is acted out like a play with three characters. They are the mother, the daughter, and a third person. This ballad uses irony to depict the struggles of a mother in times of racial inequality and violence and her eagerness to please her daughter by offering a safe alternative to what her daughter wants to do. The daughter wants to take part in helping the world become a better place by participating in a Freedom March. Her patriotism is commendable, but the mother is certain of the dangers of such a march and ironically, she offers a compromise that is possibly the worst decision she will make in her life.

In the first stanza, the daughter is offering to her mother a compromise of going downtown instead of out to play. She wants to march in the streets of Birmingham in a Freedom March. Her mother is all too aware of what goes on at these types of demonstrations and how there are racists that don’t care if you are only a young child. The irony here is even the people you should be able to trust are not trustworthy, which is implied in the second stanza: “For the dogs are fierce and wild / And clubs and hoses and guns and jails / Aren’t good for a little child.” The clubs and hoses belong to the police for crowd control and in this era, the police were against civil rights and treated the blacks badly. They were supposed to protect the peaceful protestors but that isn’t always what happened. It is apparent after reading this stanza that this is a ballad that uses irony to imply a tragic ending is inevitable.

Dalton 2

The daughter begins to argue with her mother: “But mother, I won’t be alone. / Other children will go with me / And march the streets of Birmingham.” The daughter has a solid and admirable reason for wanting to go, as the last line indicates, “To make our country free.” How is a mother to argue with that? She certainly wants her daughter to be a part of what is to become her future freedom from racism and discrimination, but at the same time, ensure her safety and well being. The mother must make a decision and as ironic as it is, hers is to deny her daughter’s request and offer a compromise intended to ensure her safety from the guns and dogs and hoses.

The mother’s compromise is to let her go to church. She says, “No, baby, no you may not go, / But you may go to church instead / And sing in the children’s choir.” Ironically the mother believes that the church is safe; a house of God that no one would dare invade with intent to harm. Church is a place where you can get away from all the violence and destruction that is going on outside the doors. In church you are safe because God is watching over you.

The next stanza depicts the little girl preparing for church. The speaker is giving the description of her: “white gloves on her small brown hands” and her white shoes are signs of her innocence and virginity, the irony here is the overtones of something angelic. The mother had her daughter get ready to go to Gods house. The girl takes a bath, and combs and brushes her hair; this is probably the same ritual she has performed every Sunday morning since she can remember. It is just another evening preparing to do what she has done so many times before.

The mother is happy the compromise was going so well. The daughter is now ready to venture on her way to the