Essay: The Historical Significance Surrounding Ballad of Birmingham (Dudley Randall)

The Historical Significance Surrounding Ballad of Birmingham
Ballad of Birmingham, written by Dudley Randall, was published in 1965 in response to the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing. The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing was a racial terrorist attack carried out by members of the Ku Klux Klan on September 15, 1963. The attack came at the height of the civil rights movement and was responsible for the deaths of four young girls.
The events leading up to the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church tell the story of a troubled city in a troubled America. Racial tension had existed in Birmingham for as long as the city itself. The city was no stranger to racial violence, home to over 50 bombing from 1948 to 1962, Birmingham earned the nickname of “Bombingham.” In early 1963, these bombings lead to the planning of the Birmingham Campaign by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The goal of the conference was to peacefully attack the city’s segregation during the Easter season. Easter was one of the largest shopping seasons for Birmingham merchants, second only to Christmas. The campaign began on April 3rd and included large meetings, sit-ins, marches, and a boycott of Birmingham merchants. On April 12th, after more than a week of protests, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested during the Good Friday march on city hall. King had announced in the week prior that he planned on being arrested even though he had no bail money. King was officially charged with “parading without a permit” (Roy 418) He was quoted saying, “I don’t know what will happen; I don’t know where the money will come from. But I have to make a faith act.” King was kept in solitary confinement and was denied his one phone call. (Stanford University) It wasn’t until King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, became worried and called the Kennedy Administration that King was granted his one phone call. King was granted bail on April 20, 1963, after the funds were appropriated by his wife. During his incarceration, King composed one of the most famous letters ever written, Letter from Birmingham Jail. The letter addressed a group of clergymen who criticized the Birmingham Campaign saying the battle should be fought in courtrooms rather than on the streets. (King) On May 2, 1963, over 1,000 African American students marched through downtown Birmingham and hundreds were arrested as the Birmingham Police Department attempted to stop the protest. The next day, hundreds of protesters showed up to march through downtown. The protesters were met with officers in riot gear wielding clubs and high-pressure fire hoses. The altercation resulted in many having to be hospitalized with blunt force trauma. Over the next few days, photos surfaced of children being hit with fire hoses and police dogs attacking protesters; this incited further protests and caused tensions to grow throughout the country. By May 10th negotiations by the Senior Citizens Council of Birmingham and many leaders of the Birmingham Campaign had reached an agreement. Signs designating restrooms and water fountains as “white only” and “black only” would be removed and lunch counters would be desegregated. The negotiations also called for a “program of upgrading Negro employment” and the release of protesters from Birmingham City Jail. (Stanford University) This agreement became known as “The Birmingham Truce Agreement” and a biracial committee was created to see that the terms of the truce were upheld. For the months following the truce, tensions in Birmingham seemed relatively calm.
Founded in 1873 as the First Colored Baptist Church of Birmingham, the 16th Street Baptist church played a major role during the civil rights movement. The church in its current capacity was completed in 1911. Due to segregation and the church being the only established place of worship for African Americans, the church served as a social center, lecture hall, and meeting place for nearly forty percent of Birmingham’s population. (16th Street Baptist Church) African American’s traveled from the surrounding areas to attend “everybody’s church.” The church became a popular location for the mass meeting of protesters during the civil rights movement. This includes numerous meetings during the Birmingham Campaign in early 1963. The 16th Street Baptist Church was also the starting point of many marches through downtown Birmingham during the civil rights movement. It is because of this influence that the church was attacked in late 1963.
On Sunday, September 15th, 1963, at 10:22 AM, an explosion rocked the city of Birmingham. A large explosive device had been detonated under the front steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church. The night before the explosion, Thomas Blanton, Robert Chambliss, Bobby Cherry, and Herman Cash had planted at least fifteen sticks of dynamite and a timing device under the steps of the church. In a 2013 interview, Carolyn McKinstry, a fifteen-year-old Sunday School secretary in the church at the time of the explosion recalled the events that unfolded that day. “When I got to the office the phone was ringing and the caller on the other end of the phone said, “three minutes.” It was a male caller . . . I took about 15 steps into the sanctuary and the bomb exploded.” (McKinstry) McKinstry goes on to tell of the chaos that ensued following the explosion. She recalls frantically running around searching for her two younger brothers. “The church was already surrounded by policemen. People were just kind of in panic mode.” (McKinstry) Riots erupted in the streets around Birmingham. Across the city, the same day one black youth was killed by police and another was killed in a mob of angry white men. (16th Street Baptist Church) McKinstry suffered from depression throughout her young adult life as a result of the trauma caused by the explosion. The explosion caused the untimely death of four young girls and injured 20 more. In May 2013, President Obama posthumously awarded the four girls a Congressional Gold Medal. (McKinstry) The explosion changed Birmingham in a major way and served as the influence for change for years to come.
The influence of the attack was felt everywhere from popular culture to legislation. The attack led to mass support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This act was responsible for prohibiting public discrimination based on race, religion, and nationality.
Sec. 201. (a) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin. (Civil Rights Act of 1964)
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was also responsible for outlawing literacy tests which were used to keep African Americans from voting. The attack also led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which abolished poll taxes. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church was also a considerable influence of popular culture for many years following the attack. Many songs were written in the wake of the bombing as well as many books written on the subject. A 1997 documentary titled, “four little girls” focuses on the events surrounding the bombing. The attack has been the focus of many pieces of poetry. Most notably Ballad of Birmingham which tells the story of a girl who wants to attend a freedom rally but is forced to go to church by her mother because it is safer. In an ironic turn of events, the girl is killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. The attack on the 16th Street Baptist Church played a key role in many political actions as well as the in the creation of media for years to come.
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was not the only racially driven attack in Birmingham. Two years prior to the September 15th bombing, Birmingham was involved in an attack during the Freedom Rider campaign. The campaign involved African Americans riding interstate buses throughout the summer of 1961. On May 14, 1961, two Greyhound buses departed from Anniston, Alabama slated an arrival in Birmingham. When the first bus attempted to leave Anniston, they were attacked by a mob of Klan members. The bus was crippled and as a result, was forced to stop seven miles outside of town where it was set on fire. The second bus arrived in Birmingham; when protesters stepped off the bus a mob of clan members attacked them with baseball bats, tire irons, and bike chains. (Arsenault 220-224)
The rich history of racial violence in Birmingham made it an easy choice for Dudley Randall. Randall’s most well-known poem, Ballad of Birmingham, recalls the events of September 15, 1961. Randall does a great job to capture the emotion in Ballad of Birmingham; this gives the poem a very ominous mood. The events of the Birmingham Campaign contributed to the racial tensions that caused the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. The arrest of Martin Luther King Jr. during the Good Friday Parade of 1963 gave society one of the greatest manuscripts ever written. This, along with the many other acts of racial violence, led to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. The deaths of the four young girls caused a nationwide shockwave that contributed to the passage of multiple pivotal acts of legislation. The tragedy of September 15, 1963, also inspired many creative minds around the United States. Dudley Randal was one of these creative minds that was inspired to write Ballad of Birmingham.