Bystanders who trained their smartphone cameras on an Alabama riverfront dock, as several white boaters pummeled a Black riverboat co-captain, couldn’t have known the footage would elicit a national conversation about racial solidarity
As bystanders trained their smartphone cameras on the riverfront dock while several white boaters pummeled a Black riverboat co-captain, they couldn’t have known the footage would elicit a national conversation about racial solidarity.
Yet, a week after multiple videos showing the now-infamous brawl and valiant defense of the outnumbered co-captain were shared widely on social media, it’s clear the event truly tapped into the psyche of Black America and created a broader cultural moment.
Andrea Boyles, a sociology professor at Tulane University, said a long history of anti-Black racism and attacks and current events likely magnified the attack’s impact and response.
“Especially at a time like now where we see an increase in anti-Black racism through legislation and otherwise, whether we’re thinking about history, the banning of Black history and curriculum and all sorts of things across the state of Florida” and elsewhere, Boyles said. “So this is why it is on the forefront of people’s minds. And folks are very much tuned in, Black people in particular.“
Many see the Aug. 5 ordeal on the riverfront dock in Montgomery, Alabama’s capital city steeped in civil rights history, as a long-awaited answer to countless calls for help that went unanswered for past Black victims of violence and mob attacks.
“We witnessed a white mob doing this to him,” said Michelle Browder, an artist and social justice entrepreneur in Montgomery, describing the attack by boaters on the Black riverboat co-captain.
“I call it a mob because that is what it was, it was a mob mentality,” she added. “It then became a moment because you saw Black people coming together.”
After being inundated with images and stories of lethal violence against Black people, including motorists in traffic stops, church parishioners and grocery shoppers, the video from Montgomery struck a chord because it didn’t end in the worst of outcomes for Black Americans.
“For Montgomery to have this moment, we needed to see a win. We needed to see our community coming together and we needed to see justice,” Browder said.
Videos of the brawl showed the participants largely divided along racial lines. Several white men punched or shoved the Black riverboat co-captain after he took a separate vessel to shore and tried to move their pontoon boat. The white boaters’ private vessel was docked in a spot designated for the city-owned Harriott II riverboat, on which more than 200 passengers were waiting to disembark.
