The line employs irony in its message within the context of the historical event.
The line from the poem 'Birmingham Sunday' by Richard Fariña uses the literary technique of irony. In this line, the statement 'At an old Baptist church there was no need to run' is ironic because it contradicts the historical context of the bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on a Sunday in 1963, where four African-American girls were killed.
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