"Ballad of Birmingham" by Dudley Randall, expresses a powerful feeling of being a victim of a tragic racial attack against an African-American church in Alabama. Alabama has always been known for being a centre of racial violent. In this poem, an innocent young girl is one of many victims of teh 1963 brutal attack on the bombing of a Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

The young girl, who at first begged her mother to march in teh streets wiht her friends, to stand up for her country and to fight for freedom and independence, obeyed her mother and went to Church insteant. Churchm which allegedly is a place of worship and peace. Paradoxically it is int eh house of religion and peace where the child finds death. It is sad to accept the fact that a religious African-American mother used to be in the constant fear and danger until she reached the inside of a Church.

At the beginning of the poem, Dudley Randall used direct quotes from the mother and her little girl so that the reader may feel more involved in the situation and may feel part of the family as well. The author then used a series of images and contrasts, such as "white gloces" and "white shoes" against the girl's "brown skin" to accentuate the drama of the situation. The reader realizes that these are poignant symbols of the strife between blacks and whites.

At the end of the poem, when the explosion had happened, the mother is searching for her daughter. Instead, she finds her shoe. The reader feels horror yet the author never wrote about feelings or emotions of the characters. It is amazing how a non-revealing poem can be so powerful without being too detailed or perplexed. One knows it is an exquisite piece of art when the reader naturally feels horror and disgust without having the author's description about the feeling of the narrator or of the characters throughout the entire poem.