|
(right-click the movie to access controls)
|
Dudley Randall (1914-2000) wrote “Ballad of Birmingham” in 1963 in response to the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. When he published the poem as a Broadside in 1965, he founded the Broadside Press in Detroit, which became one of the most successful poetry presses in the United States. Dudley Randall graduated from Wayne State University in 1949 and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters from WSU in 1986. In addition to becoming Detroit’s first poet laureate, he was awarded a Life Achievement Award from the National Endowment of the Arts, a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Michigan. “Ballad of Birmingham” has been reprinted and collected in hundreds of books, has been translated into more than a dozen languages and has been recorded as a song by several musicians.
For more information on the bombing go here.
|
