l. – r. Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Denise McNair, and Cynthia Wesley

But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.
— Dudley Randall, Ballad of Birmingham

Greetings all Poet Pubsters assembled here. It’s Lisa as host who is serving up a prompt, goodies, and liquid refreshments. Today will be a Prosery prompt, where you write a prose story instead of a poem, using a given line of poetry to inspire you. Word limit is 144 words, not including title, and the given line must be used without adding or taking away any words in between. Punctuation may be changed.

Before getting into the meat of the prompt,

A REMINDER:
This coming Saturday, January 20, from 10 to 11 a.m. EST, is dVerse LIVE!, where Björn will be hosting.

Note: there will be no Live edition on Thursday so we can focus on a normal OLN

Also, please read changes that are taking place as of 2024:
This will be open to anyone who wants to listen or read their poem or someone’s poem or sharing of a poem that one likes. Does not have to be the poem shared during OLN Thursday — it can be any poem that they have written or read.

As soon as I saw I was hosting on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, I knew what kind of poem I was looking for. I couldn’t remember if January 15 was just MLK Jr.’s birthday or also an official day to honor him so I looked at timeanddate.com for US holidays in 2024. I learned that it is not only an All State holiday but a Federal holiday. Unfortunately I saw in the list some other things: in Alabama and Mississippi it is also a State holiday for Robert E. Lee’s Birthday. Really!? Really!? For those who may not know, Lee was a general who led the Confederate Army during the Civil War in the US. On the up side, Idaho also recognizes the day as a State holiday, Idaho Human Rights Day, and Arizona and New Hampshire recognize it as a State holiday, Civil Rights Day.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the most prominent leaders of the US Civil Rights Movement from 1955 until his assassination on April 4, 1968. It’s hard to believe that almost seventy years have passed since King’s prominent involvement in the US Civil Rights Movement. In some ways it feels we have made much progress in the area of civil rights, but in many ways we are spinning in place.

I looked for a poem from that era, before Dr. King was assassinated. I found “Ballad of Birmingham,” by Dudley Randall, that was written in 1968, but was about the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963.

“Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?”

“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren’t good for a little child.”

“But, mother, I won’t be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free.”

“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children’s choir.”

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
“O, here’s the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?”

Your challenge for today, if you choose to accept it, is to write to the line:

But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.

Here’s how to take part in the Prosery Prompt:
• Write a piece of flash fiction or other prose up of up to or exactly 144 words, including the given line from the poem.
• Post your Prosery piece on your blog and link back to this post.
• Place the link to your actual post (not your blog url) on the Mister Linky page.
• Don’t forget to check the little box to accept use/privacy policy.
• Please visit other blogs and comment on their posts – reciprocation is the life of this challenge!

Learn more about the 1963 Birmingham church bombing here.
Learn more about poet Dudley Randall here.