The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 Chapter 14 Summary & Analysis

Chapter 14 Summary: 14. Every Bird and Bug in Birmingham Stops and Wonders

Kenny wakes up and sees Joey dressed in a white dress for Sunday school. He goes out and sits beneath a tree, still tired from almost drowning at the lake. When Momma asks if he can make it another week in the Alabama heat, Kenny says that he prefers the igloo in Flint. Still sitting under the tree, Kenny hears a loud bang, and the tree he is leaning against is shaken. Neighbors come out of their houses to investigate the noise. Byron tells Kenny that someone came by and told them that Joey’s church was just bombed. Byron runs off and Kenny follows, confused.

At the church, there is smoke and debris. Kenny walks up to where the doors were and sees someone carrying a small girl in a blue dress. Her body is placed next to another girl in a red dress. Kenny walks into the church and sees a shiny black shoe sticking out. Kenny grabs the shoe and pulls, but it is being held by the gray figure (the Wool Pooh) that he saw in the lake. Kenny pulls the shoe away from the figure and runs away back to Grandma Sands’s house.

Kenny sits on his bed, looking at the torn shoe. There is a Buster Brown logo inside; he knows that it is Joey’s shoe. He hears Joey’s voice in the hall and thinks that the Wool Pooh has brought her by to say goodbye. He does not look up, but tells Joey that he loves her. Joey becomes mad when Kenny will not look at her or answer her questions. When Kenny finally looks, Joey has both of her shoes. She tells Kenny that he waved to her by the church and she chased him home, but he was wearing different clothes. Kenny believes that Joey escaped the Wool Pooh and runs to the church to find his parents and Byron.

Analysis: Chapter 14

Experienced through Kenny’s ten-year-old point of the view, and the childlike imagery and symbolism inherent within it, the church bombing underscores the theme of life and death. The events of that day are life-changing for the entire Watson family, but especially for Kenny because he goes inside the church and comes face to face with death, symbolized again by the figure of the Wool Pooh. Kenny imagines he is struggling with the Wool Pooh as he pulls a shoe he believes to be Joey’s from a child’s foot in the chaos, figuratively struggling with death for the life of his sister. When Joey appears alive and well at home, Kenny’s traumatized mind is unable to accept reality, instead believing the Wool Pooh is allowing her to visit her loved ones one last time, continuing to emphasize the Wool Pooh as a symbol of death. The imagery of life and death continues when it’s revealed that Joey survived because she was led away from the church right before the bombing by someone whom she believed to be Kenny. This parallels how Kenny was guided by an angel that looked like Joey when he was drowning in Chapter 13. The fact that these two experiences occur so close together further emphasize the theme of life and death.

The climax of this fictionalized depiction of the historical Birmingham Church Bombing brings race and the historical reality of racial hatred and violence in the United States into sharp focus. As Kenny leaves the scene, he passes a girl in a red dress and a girl in a blue dress who have been set on the lawn outside the church. Kenny imagines Joey next to them in her white dress, completing the red, white, and blue colors of the American flag. This is a significant example of vivid imagery that emphasizes the tragic and terrible reality of racial violence in the United States, and the traumatic effects of racism on the Black families who have experienced them.

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