ly do? I want to march along the streets of Birmingham, Alabama, in a freedom march that I heard of.No, child, I am not going to let you go. The police are fierce and wild all the time, and they use clubs, hoses, guns and maybe even incarceration. Those things aren’t meant for a little child.But, mom, I wasn’t planning on going alone, I have a bunch of people to go with me. We really want to march the streets, to help in making our country free. No, baby, I am not going to let you go, because I am scared that guns will be fired. But I will let you go to the church to sing in the children’s choir instead. The child has combed and brushed her black hair, and bathed until she was clean enough to smell like a rose. She put white gloves on her little brown skinned hands, and bright white shoes on her feet.The mother was happy to know that her child was going to such a sacred place like a church. But that was the last smile her face would ever see. Just then the mother heard an explosion, and her eyes grew mad and welled up with tears. She ran through the streets of Birmingham, calling her child’s name out. She tore through pieces of glass and brick of the church, and then picked up a little shoe that she had spotted, and said, “well here is the shoe that my daughter wore, but baby where are you?”After reading the Literal translation one might be fairly in touch with the poem and its true meaning, but the reader will never truly understand the poem until they have read the Thematic translation. The Thematic translation, again, tells the authors theme and reasoning. It also tells the symbolism that the author chose to use. The Thematic translation for this work would be:In this poem, by Dudley Randall, many different ideas are shown. When looking at the poem for the first time one might see that the theme would be to reveal a piece of human character, by the mother being cautious and overbearing...
