Analysis Of Langston Hughes's Ballad Of Birmingham And Theme For English B

Poetry is an art form that is sometimes used to portray emotion and how times were when the piece was written. Many forms of art preserve the story of what happened during that time depicted in the works almost like a time capsule. Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham” and Langston Hughes’ “Theme for English B” are two great examples of poems that show how art work can be preserved over a long-time period. Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham” captures the moment when a group of white supremist bombed a church killing four little girls because of tension between races during that time. Langston Hughes’ “Theme for English B” displays the lack of equality among races in the time it was written. Both pieces of art show the lack of growth within
Failure of grasping the subject of treating people how they should be treated has led to an atmosphere and reality of a world full of hatred. Hate is expressed in many forms some being racism, and terrorism. History is taught so the things that happened in the past would not be repeated in the future, but the emotions of the past still lingers and is integrated with the present instead of being left in the past. Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham” is a prime example of how hateful people were during the time it was written in 1966. The mother in poem stated to her daughter “No, baby, no, you may not go, For the dogs are fierce and wild, And clubs and horses, guns and jails Aren’t good for a little child.” (p. 500) People of the African-American were in the hard process of gaining their civil rights. However, racist white people opposed the idea of that happening so when African-Americans marched in the streets they used many methods to stop them such as dogs, guns and sending people to jail. This hatred as spilled over into today’s society, but it comes in different forms one being terrorism. The intentional explosion of the Six-tenth Baptist church illustrated in “Balled of Birmingham” is terrorism. The most prominent terror attacks taking place recently is school shootings. Cable New Networks reports “We're only nine weeks into
Diversity is still scarce in some areas of society. People lack unity and fail to realize as a society we are the same but not necessarily in a physical sense, therefore they treat people that are different from them as with no respect if they are less of a human being. This type of mistreatment of people was occurring when Langston Hughes’ poem “Theme for English B” was written in 1951. The poem stated “Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me. Nor do I often want to be a part of you. But we are, that’s true!” (p. 390) The only things that set people apart are physical differences, religious, differences, sexuality differences, and gender differences, but these things should not keep people from unity. The differences should bring people together to learn from one another and grow together as a society. On the contrary, today the government is insisting that we build walls and establish travel bans to keep people that are different out of our country because to do not identify with their differences. This behavior