Ballad of Birmingham

Dudley Randall wrote a very moving ballad on the bombing of a church in Birmingham,Alabama in 1963.

Our mum often got us to help prepare a slide for her teaching. It was always fun having a hand at the table, helping her out when we could. In moments like this, we caught on her commitment to work. And she would pass us some tips on teaching, and about her subjects.

She used this poem to teach her students about sensitivities. This poem also helped us understand why mothers are so scared to let go of their kids in the streets. A bomb or anything may just explode.

And she also passed to us her understanding of the bigger world. And the world of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The period of helping a mother who is a teacher is gone. She has since retired and we have all moved on to another level of life. But what she teaches remains in our hearts.

Ballad of Birmingham

"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 andwild,
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 strets 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
that he child
Was in thesacred 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?"