Ballad+of+Birmingham

The event that the poet was talking about in the poem was the church bombing in Birmingham Alabama, 1963. The reason for the attack upon the church was because of racial discrimination. Until they 1960s when Martin Luther King Jr. made his speech blacks were never treated equally. The bombers were targeting a the blacks. The man that was arrested for it was Robert Chambliss. I think the poet wrote it because of the sad story it told. The part of the poem that spoke to me was //But that smile was the last smile To come upon her face. For when she hea////rd 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?"// The reason this poems is so sad is because of the loss of a child. I think that to any parent that the loss of a child is worse pain they could ever go through. I also think the poet did a good job getting his message through in the last three lines of the poem.