Montgomery Mayor Steven L. Reed said in a statement Sunday on social media, “justice will be served.”
In a city where racial tensions are at a constant simmer, they boiled over in Montgomery, Alabama, Saturday after witnesses say a group of white men allegedly attacked a Black dock worker in clips that have now gone viral.
One witness claimed that the group of boaters refused to move their pontoon boat so that the Harriott II Riverboat could dock, the New York Post reported.
In videos posted to social media, a member of the pontoon boat crew, who were white, got out of their vessel and allegedly attacked the Black Montgomery Riverfront dock worker, according to reports.
In the videos, other white men reportedly went to attack the Black dock worker and as the incident unfolded, other Black folks in the area appeared to defend the lone dock worker, and the video shows at least one Black man dive into the water from the riverboat, Montgomery Advertiser reported.
The melee, which started around 7 p.m. Saturday, ended with people thrown into the river, multiple struck with a folding chair and several in handcuffs, according to New York Post.
A spokesperson for the Montgomery Police Department told Inside Edition Digital in a statement: “On Saturday, August 5, 2023 at about 7 p.m., MPD responded to the 200 block of Coosa Street on a disturbance. At the scene, they located a large group of subjects engaged in a physical altercation. Several subjects have been detained and charges are pending.”
The spokesperson added that “there are 4 active warrants at this time and there’s a possibility more will follow after the review of additional video. There will be no additional updates until this afternoon.”
Montgomery Mayor Steven L. Reed said in a statement Sunday on social media, “justice will be served.”
Inside Edition Digital reached out to the Montgomery Riverfront office for more information and for comment and has not heard back.
None of the suspects or victims have been named in the incident.
The location of the brawl at the docks of the Montgomery Riverfront was used as a location to transport slaves and became an active hub of selling of human bodies.
“In 1820, Alabama was home to 41,879 slaves. By 1860, that population swelled to more than 435,000, among the largest population of enslaved black people in America. That year, Alabama’s capital city had more slave-trading spaces than it did churches and hotels. Montgomery was a hub for slave trade, thanks to the easy transport via railroads and the Alabama River,” according to Lonely Planet.
Following the Civil War, the city was segregated and became epicenter for the civil rights movement.
Martin Luther King Jr. launched the civil rights movement in Montgomery in 1955 and called it the "cradle of the Confederacy.”
A decade later in 1965, during his march to Selma, Dr. King would reference Montgomery in a speech he made following the historic movement across the bridge.
"From Montgomery to Birmingham, from Birmingham to Selma, from Selma back to Montgomery, the trail wound in a circle, long and often bloody, yet it has become a highway up from darkness," King said at the time, according to the Washington Post.
