The Montgomery Riverfront Brawl Exposed the Truth: America Isn't as Divided as it Seems | Opinion

It started as a brawl on a riverfront in Montgomery, Alabama. A Black dock worker asked a group of white boaters to move their pontoon so that a riverboat could dock. They refused, and one of the men in the boat threw a punch at the Black worker, and the rest is history: All hell broke loose. Fists were thrown, body slams were administered, and even folding chairs became part of the fray. What was most apparent in the video was a host of Black folks joining the fight—one of them by swimming across the river—to defend the dock worker.

Some saw in the brawl, which pitted whites against Blacks, as an echo of Montgomery's racist past. But by the time the video went viral, the brawl had proven the exact opposite. In what seemed to be five minutes after the news broke about the story, a slew of parody videos and memes coming from Black Twitter and elsewhere began making their way around the interwebs—and they revealed the truth about this country: that we are much less divided than we think.

One video shows a Black man in the gym doing various exercises with a folding chair similar to the one that was used in the altercation, along with the caption "On a deployment."

Another featured a young black man going about his day with a folding chair strapped to his hip where a pistol would normally be. Another video showed a group of four Black children doing mock training exercises with folding chairs with Black Panther's "Yibambe" chant playing in the background and the caption "Training for the next battle."

Then there was my personal favorite, a group of Black and white men at a pool re-enacting their version of the Montgomery Melee. This version featured one of the black participants wielding a folding chair and people doing Hulk Hogan-style leg drops as if they had brought the WWE to their neighborhood swimming spot. It was hilarious.

But it wasn't just funny. It revealed what the riverfront incident had obscured, a mirror image painted in our true colors. Because these people were neighbors. These people were friends. These people had to work to separate themselves out into their respective races for the purposes of their reenactment.

That's the real America.

The reenactment video featured both white and Black men goofing around and making light of the fight at the riverfront. It reflected the reality that everyone, regardless of ethnicity, could appreciate decent people triumphing over entitled, obnoxious people who thought they would attack someone just for doing his job.

In fact, many of those applauding the Black folks in this scenario weren't Black. There were plenty of videos of white Alabamians defending the dock worker and applauding the people who stepped in to protect him from the boat owners.

At a time when relations seem to be at an all-time low, the reactions to this story show that perhaps we are not quite as divided as social media would appear to indicate.

Of course, this is not to say there is absolutely no racial division in American society. But the problem lies with members of the media and online influencer types on both sides of the political divide who foment racial tensions.

Despite the problems our nation still faces, regular folks of all backgrounds are still getting along. Hopefully, we can keep it that way.

Jeff Charles is the host of "A Fresh Perspective" podcast and a contributor for RedState and Liberty Nation.

The views in this article are the writer's own.