Birmingham, Alabama, 1963

[Salsa_1960]

This is a poem I remember first reading when I was in college, but it is more than literature. It is also history. It is based on an historical event-- the 1963 bombing of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s church, the Sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, by white terrorists. Four young girls died in the bombing.

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 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?”
​

 

[Inspired]

Anyone who has the chance should go to the church, It's right outside Kelly Ingram park. there is a memorial in the church itself downstairs where the girls where playing before the church was bombed, there are pictures throughout history of all that has happened on those church steps. You can see the pictures of children protesting, and the police dogs, water hoses, and see things you won't be able to comprehend, things you didn't think humans were capable of. I got to see Cherry take the stand, that man showed no remorse at all for what he had done all those years ago. Racism is still very alive in Birmingaham , AL.


Officials in the police department, the FBI, and other government agencies knew this was the bloody handiwork of the Ku Klux Klan. For decades, the KKK had carried out all kinds of terror against Black people in Birmingham. There were 40 bombings between the end of WW2 and 1963. This is not to say that the Panthers did not have extremists on their side either, but they never went so far as to bomb a church and kill innocent children.

Four Klansmen were prime suspects: Robert Chambliss, Bobby Frank Cherry, Herman Frank Cash, and Thomas Blanton Jr. But none of them were arrested and charged, even though the FBI had more than enough evidence to implicate them. The case was officially closed in 1965 and wasn't re-opened until 1971. Chambliss was finally convicted of murder in 1977. Cash died in 1994 without ever being charged. Blanton was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison.

On May 22, 2002, Bobby Cherry was finally convicted of the murders of the four girls and received a life sentence. This conviction came almost 40 years after the bombing--even though authorities had evidence of Cherry's guilt and he openly talked about his involvement in the bombing.

 

[Jesus-is-the-1]

Anyone who has the chance should go to the church, It's right outside Kelly Ingram park. there is a memorial in the church itself downstairs where the girls where playing before the church was bombed, there are pictures throughout history of all that has happened on those church steps. You can see the pictures of children protesting, and the police dogs, water hoses, and see things you won't be able to comprehend, things you didn't think humans were capable of. I got to see Cherry take the stand, that man showed no remorse at all for.

I didn't know you could visit the church. I live in Florida, so it isn't too terribly far. I am going to go visit someday soon. Although it saddens me very much, I would love to see it.