S. Waziri Hassan
Aug 14, 2023
min
read

Riverfront Park in Montgomery, Alabama.

A Brawl, A Swim and An Image Of Martin Luther King Jr Holding A Folding Chair.
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Reportedly, a group of white men attacked a black dock worker Damien Pickett after he asked them to move their boat. In response, a group of black men intervened to defend the worker.  He had been attempting to move their pontoon boat, since it was blocking the ferry from docking in its regular space. A crowd of mostly Black bystanders ran to help the riverboat co-captain who was being assaulted by a group of white people.

The videos from various bystanders around the dock captured it all. The co-captain throwing his hat in the air (The Michael Jackson way) and a 360 swing, once a white man pushed him harshly. A different Black man whaling on people with a folding chair, including a white woman who was just sitting on the ground by then; a young Black man on a boat close by who jumped into the water (truth be told this dude deserves an Olympic gold medal) and swam with amazing speed to the scene to throw punches.



And, in just moments, my phone buzzed continuously. The B.O.T ‘Black on Twitter’… Ooops sorry Black on X, jumped to life jubilating how the sons and daughters of the soil were whooping some white folks in defense of their distant cousin from Yoruba land.

Across social media platforms, ‘especially Black people’ were converting horror over a narrowly averted, racialized fight into funny memes, celebrating the reflex of Blacks at the scene to stand up for one another, especially when faced with danger from racially segregating folks.


One meme stood out for me- the statue of Martin Luther King Jr. with the folding chair was just hilarious. It brought back a lot of memories. Imagine a match from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama with MLK carrying a folding chair just to whoop some white folks who denied Blacks human rights.

“Preserve that man’s cap in a museum" a podcast hosted by Sim and Saunders adds more juice to this story! Anyways more fun to this drama, four mugshots have been taken so far. Allen Todd, Zachary Shipman, Richard Roberts and Mary Todd, you guessed right no Black mugshot this time around. The Montgomery Police Department has charged the four accomplices with third-degree assault and more might be added on the list.

The Captain of Harriott ll, Jim Kittrell, gave an interview stating that he believes the attack was racially motivated.

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