Irony In The Ballad Of Birmingham

In the poem, Randall creates a conversation between a mother and her young daughter. He opens with the daughter asking if she could go march in a freedom march instead of going outside to play. Her mother refuses to let her march because she wants to keep the little girl safe from the violence, but when the daughter is sent to church, an explosion kills the child. “ ‘Ballad of Birmingham’ provides rich lessons in irony, the power of poetry, and the history of our country” (Jolley 38). The irony is displayed from the fact that the mother wants to keep her child safe by sending her to church and thus leads to her death is one of the main literary devices that Randall uses in this poem. From this irony, one can see how afraid the African American