Ballad of Birmingham (Critical Overview)

Critical Overview

Randall receives mention and praise in historical accounts of African-American literature most often as an editor, founder, and head of Broadside Press. In his contribution to The Black American Writer series, Paul Breman writes almost exclusively about Randall’s work as a publisher, and Richard Barksdale and Kenneth Kinnamon, in their volume Black Writers in America, claim that “undoubtedly, Randall’s most notable contribution is not his poetry but the arrangements he has made to facilitate the publication of the poetry of young men and women who, without his aid and counsel, would have remained ‘Black and Unknown Bards’ just as their early forefathers did.” These scholars note that Randall serves as a kind of “bridge connecting an older generation of poets with a younger generation,” and they highlight Randall’s work as a translator of Russian and French as well as noting the range of styles he utilized in his poetry.

When “Ballad of Birmingham” is specifically mentioned by Randall’s critics, it receives most attention as the first broadside to be published by the press. But it also reflects Randall’s “firm sense of the lyric,” according to Ron Welburn, so powerfully as to have been a natural choice for the musical adaptation it was given by New York folk singer Jerry Moore. Other critics highlight Randall’s sense of formalism, particularly R. Baxter Miller and D. H. Melhem. In an essay titled “‘Endowing the World and Time’: The Life and Work of Dudley Randall,” Miller argues that Randall’s poetry, “so accomplished technically and profoundly concerned with the history and racial identity of Blacks, benefits from the ideas and literary forms of the Harlem Renaissance as well as from the critical awareness of the earlier Western Renaissance.” In an article in Black American Literature Forum, D. H. Melhem mixes his own critical readings of selected poems by Randall with Randall’s own reflections on his work, culled from a personal interview with the poet. Preceding his discussion of “Ballad of Birmingham,” Melhem claims that Randall’s strongest poems in Cities Burning, (one collection in which “Ballad of Birmingham” appears) “employ the lyrical understatement of black folk poetry and the terseness of blues, ‘ballards,’ spirituals, and seculars, and of old English ballads ... in which deep feeling compresses into rhythm, rime, and the tragic frame.” He describes “Ballad of Birmingham” as “complementing both subject and genre [the ballad form itself]” with a “spare dignity.” Melhem and others also indicate that Randall’s use of the broadside format to distribute this and other poems on similar themes of social injustice is appropriate given the broadside’s historic use as a tool for political provocation. Prior to and during the American Revolution, for instance, Thomas Paine used the broadside format to distribute writings he composed to stir up support among his fellow colonists for American independence. But, as Melhem also adds, despite his political interest, Randall’s “deep concern was always for the best poetry.”

Randall’s work has also been hailed in poetry by other writers. In his “For Dudley Randall,” Lenard D. Moore describes a reading by Randall in which his poems “... stretch eyes wide / make lips hang / pierce eardrums deep / and send brothers & sisters sliding / to the edge of their seats.” For Moore, Randall’s words are “gems” and a “reminiscence of Blackness.”