The events that materialized on September 15, 1963 formed the foundation for Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham”. On this day in history, four young girls were killed by an explosive device that detonated during the service at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. In an instant, the place of joy and Godliness became a scene of death and sadness. In the ballad, the young child asked her mother whether she could attend the march on the streets of Birmingham that day. Her mother responds with “No, baby, no you may not go, / For the dogs are fierce and wild, / And the clubs and hoses, guns, and jails / Aren’t good for a little child” (Randall). Mrs. McNair would not let her daughter attend the march because of the danger that could ensue. Therefore, she told her daughter that she was allowed to attend church to sing in the choir. We now look back on this piece of irony with the knowledge that, in an attempt to protect her daughter from danger, she unintentionally placed her in a situation that would prove itself to be fatal for her daughter. Another example of irony surrounding the event was the topic the adults were discussing in the Sunday school class that morning. The “lively debated” topic of the day …show more content…
In the novel, May has a wailing wall, on which she expresses the things that upset her in an attempt to ‘let go’ of the sadness. When Lily visits the wall, she pulls out a piece of paper with the writing: “Birmingham, Sept 15, four little angels dead” (Kidd 80). This slip of paper is an allusion to the bombings that occurred in Birmingham. It demonstrates the connection that May was once deeply saddened by this event, so she calmed herself by writing it down and adding it to her wall. I can predict that, on the other slips of paper, there are varying events that depressed May written down, whether it be a normal, daily issue of her’s or an event as harrowing as the Birmingham church