Dudley Randall's poem “Ballad of Birmingham” is a tribute to a real-life church bombing in 1963, which killed four young girls. The main theme is that nothing - not even a mother's love or the sacred walls of a church - can protect an innocent child from racial violence.
A bit tragic :I
The answer is:
3. It helps establish the idea that Didion's experiences in New York feel somewhat surreal to her now, like those of a character in a movie. <span> </span>