After the mother, has sent her child off to church, assuming she is safe. “she heard the explosion,” (Randall) the feelings, thoughts, anticipation running through her head at that very moment was a parent’s worst nightmare (Bonneville). “Her eyes grew wet and wild.” (Randall) without hesitation she ran, calling for her precious daughter, searching everywhere for a sign of her well-being. Arriving at the church, sorting through all the rubble the mother finally found a small white shoe, “O, here’s the shoe my baby wore, But, baby, where are you?” (Randall). The mother’s beautiful, colored, little girl is gone. Thus, Ballad of Birmingham, is a poem of struggle, innocence, and tragedy it is a real-life event that affected many. A day that forever changed lives, and one choice that ended a young girl’s life (Bonneville). The event itself is such a tragedy but poet, Dudley Randall, an African American put his sorrowful cares into word, making them into a beautiful poem. Only a man of such courage and admiration could do such a job of bringing out the best from the