How an afternoon in Montgomery became Black American folklore.
On August 5, 2023, a confrontation on the Montgomery, Alabama riverfront became something larger in Black American memory. Three years later, I find myself wondering how we might tell the story when today’s children have grandchildren of their own.
I sometimes wonder if, years from now, little Black children will sit at the feet of their grandfather and ask him to tell the story again.
Not one of the heavy stories.
Not tonight.
They will know those already.
They will have heard about marches and bridges. About dogs and hoses. About people who walked into places where they were not wanted and sat down anyway. They will know there were times when being Black in America required a particular kind of courage just to make it home.
But tonight they want the funny one.
“Grandpa,” one of them will say, already smiling, “tell us about the Hat, the Swimmer, and the Chair.”
And Grandpa will lean back.
He will pretend he doesn’t know which story they mean.
“The what?”
“The Chair!”
“Ohhh,” he’ll say.
That story.
He will tell them that the story has many names.
Some called it the Montgomery Riverfront Brawl.
Some called it the Alabama Boat Brawl.
Some called it the Alabama Sweet Tea Party.
Some called it Chairteenth.
But Grandpa?
Grandpa always preferred Fade in the Water.
And the children will laugh before the story has even begun.
Grandpa will tell them it happened a long time ago, on August 5, 2023, down in Montgomery, Alabama.
And because the children know their history, they will understand that Montgomery is not just another American city.
History has walked those streets before.
Rosa Parks walked them.
Dr. King walked them.
Black people whose names never made it into textbooks walked them.
And running beside the city is the Alabama River.
That afternoon, a riverboat called the Harriott II was trying to return to its usual docking place.
But another boat was sitting where it wasn’t supposed to be.
The crew asked the people responsible for it to move.
They wouldn’t.
They asked again.
Still nothing.
Grandpa will pause here, because every good storyteller knows you cannot rush trouble.
Eventually, a Black riverboat co-captain went ashore to deal with the situation.
There were words.
Then came a blow.
And suddenly several people were upon him.
Now, children, Grandpa will say, this is where the story begins to become something else.
Because somewhere in those first moments, the man’s hat came off.
And eventually that hat went into the air.
There are moments in history whose meaning nobody gets to choose beforehand.
A bell rings.
A door opens.
A hand goes up.
A hat flies through the Alabama sky.
Nobody held a meeting.
Nobody formed a committee.
Nobody sent out an agenda.
But Black folks saw what was happening.
And they started coming.
Brothers answered.
People ran toward the dock.
And then came The Swimmer.
A young man aboard the riverboat looked across the Water and saw what was happening.
Apparently, this young brother decided that stairs, sidewalks, docks, and all other conventional methods of transportation were taking entirely too long.
So he jumped.
Fully dressed.
Into the Alabama River.
Grandpa will insist upon this detail.
Fully.
Dressed.
Because some things deserve historical accuracy.
Into the river he went, swimming toward the dock.
Years later, the children will know him only by the name the people gave him:
Aquamayne.
Maybe Grandpa will tell them some of the other names too.
Black Aquaman.
Michael B. Phelps.
Whatever name makes the children laugh hardest.
Because that was part of what happened afterward.
Black people saw something frightening, something that could have become another painful story, and somehow we also found room for laughter.
Then more people arrived.
The balance shifted.
The man who had been alone was no longer alone.
And just when future historians might have thought the symbolism was complete, somebody picked up a folding chair.
Grandpa will become very serious here.
The children will become quiet.
Because they know what comes next.
The Chair.
Not an elegant weapon.
Not particularly majestic.
The same kind of chair you might find at a cookout, church basement, family reunion, repast, graduation party, backyard barbecue, or somebody’s grandmother’s house when twelve people arrive and there are only eight dining-room chairs.
The humble folding chair.
Black America’s reserve seating.
And on that afternoon in Montgomery, somebody raised one.
By then, the battle was effectively decided.
Grandpa will tell the children that the chair did not really win the fight.
People did.
People who decided that they would not stand by and watch someone be overwhelmed.
That distinction matters.
Because beneath all the jokes, memes, nicknames, T-shirts, reenactments, songs, and laughter was something that many Black Americans recognized almost immediately.
He was not left there alone.
Maybe that is why the story stayed with us.
We have inherited so many stories where help did not arrive.
We know stories where someone called, and nobody came.
Where somebody disappeared.
Where somebody was hurt.
Where witnesses looked away.
Where justice arrived late, if it arrived at all.
Our history contains too many photographs of Black people standing alone before crowds.
But this picture was different.
This time people came running.
One came across the dock.
Another came from the boat.
One apparently looked at the Alabama River and thought:
I can swim that.
There was something almost absurdly beautiful about it.
Not the violence.
That part deserves no romance.
People could have been seriously hurt. And the actual human beings involved were more complicated than the characters they eventually became online.
Grandpa will make sure the children understand that.
Folklore has a way of sanding down the edges of real events.
But what people choose to remember tells us something too.
We remembered the hat.
We remembered the Swimmer.
We remembered the chair.
Most of all, I think we remembered the arrival.
Maybe that is why we gave the day so many names.
Naming things is something people do when ordinary language feels insufficient.
Chairteenth.
The Alabama Sweet Tea Party.
Fade in the Water.
We turned a riverfront fight into folklore almost before the sun went down.
That is a particular kind of cultural alchemy.
We have been doing versions of it for generations.
Taking something painful and finding humor without denying the pain.
Taking fear and making a story from it.
Taking an ordinary object and turning it into a symbol.
Taking a moment when one person appeared to be alone and remembering instead the moment when everybody else showed up.
Years from now, those grandchildren may not understand why Grandpa laughs when he talks about a folding chair.
They may wonder why an old man gets a little quieter when he tells them about a hat flying into the air.
Perhaps that will be a good thing.
Because maybe they will have grown up in a world where seeing someone who looks like them surrounded and attacked does not awaken something ancient in their chest.
I hope they don’t immediately understand that part.
I hope Grandpa has to explain it.
And when he finishes, perhaps one of those children will ask the question children always ask when they sense there is something beneath the story adults aren’t saying.
“Grandpa, is that really what happened?”
Grandpa will smile.
“Well…”
Because by then, history and folklore will have been sitting beside each other for a long time.
The facts will belong to historians.
The jokes will belong to the internet.
But the memory will belong to us.
And maybe Grandpa will finally tell them the part that mattered most.
A man stood alone.
His hat went into the air.
His people saw him.
And they came.
Some ran.
One swam. And somebody brought a chair.
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