Alabama riverfront brawl videos spark a cultural moment about race, solidarity and justice
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. The videos then showed mostly Black people rushing to the co-captain’s defense, including a Black teenage riverboat crew member who swam to the dock. The videos also showed the ensuing brawl that included a Black man hitting a white person with a folding chair. As of Friday, Alabama police had charged four white people with misdemeanor assault. The folding chair-wielding man turned himself in Friday and was charged with disorderly conduct. Jim Kittrell, the captain of Harriott II, told The Daily Beast that he thought race might have been a factor in the initial attack on his co-captain, but the resulting melee was not a “Black and white thing.” “This was our crew upset about these idiots,” Kittrell also told WACV radio station. He later explained that several members of his crew, seen confronting the pontoon boat party after the riverboat docked, “felt they had to retaliate, which was unfortunate.” “I wish we could have stopped it from happening, but, when you see something like that, it was difficult. It was difficult for me to sit there in the wheelhouse watching him being attacked,” Kittrell told the station. Kittrell told The Associated Press by phone that the city had asked him not to talk about the brawl. Major Saba Coleman of the Montgomery Police Department said on Tuesday that hate crime charges were ruled out after the department consulted with the local FBI. But several observers noted the presence of a hate motivation, or lack thereof, on the part of the pontoon boat party was not why the event resonated so strongly. “All these individuals having smartphones and cameras have democratized media and information. In the past, it was a very narrow scope on what news was being reported and from what perspectives,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said. The technology, Johnson added, “opened up an opportunity for America as a whole to understand the impact of racism, the impact of violence, and the opportunity to create a narrative that’s more consistent with keeping African Americans and other communities safe.” The riverfront brawl spawned a multitude of memes, jokes, parodies, reenactments, and even T-shirts. “Lift every chair and swing,” read one shirt in a play on “ Lift Ev’ry Voice And Sing,” the late-19th century hymn sometimes referred to as the Black national anthem. Another meme likened the co-captain’s toss of his hat into the air to sending the “bat signal,” a reference to the D.C. Comics character Batman. One image of the scene captured from bystander video was altered to imitate Marvel Comics’ Avengers characters assembling through magic portals on the dock to defend the Black co-captain. Many observers on social media were quick to point out the significance of the city and location where the brawl took place. Montgomery was the first capital of the Confederacy, and the riverfront is an area where enslaved people were once unloaded to be sold at auction. The area is a few blocks from the spot where Rosa Parks was arrested for disobeying bus segregation laws. “Much of (the riverfront brawl reaction) is emblematic of the history of Montgomery,” said Timothy Welbeck, the director of the Center for Anti-Racism at Temple University in Philadelphia. “This is the home of the bus boycott; this is the home of intense, racialized segregation and various forms of resistance today,” he said. “Even if there wasn’t an explicit mention of race, many people saw a white man assaulting a Black man as a proxy for some of the racist behavior that they’ve seen before. It brought about a sense of solidarity and unified fate, too, in this
EPA civil rights case targets Mississippi over Jackson water
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that it is investigating whether Mississippi state agencies discriminated against the state’s majority-Black capital city by refusing to fund improvements for its failing water system. The announcement came days after leaders of two congressional committees said they were starting a joint investigation into a crisis that left most homes and businesses in Jackson without running water for several days in late August and early September. Heavy rainfall in late August exacerbated problems at Jackson’s main water treatment facility. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves declared an emergency August 29, and the state health department and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency have been overseeing operations and repairs at the facility since then. About 80% of Jackson’s 150,000 residents are Black, and about a quarter of the population lives in poverty. By the time Reeves issued the emergency order, Jackson residents had already been told for a month to boil their water to kill possible contaminants. NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who lives in Jackson with his family, called the EPA investigation a step in the right direction after years of the state withholding federal funds needed to avert the city’s water system. “We believe we gave compelling evidence that the state of Mississippi intentionally starved the city of Jackson of the resources to maintain its water infrastructure,” Johnson told The Associated Press on Thursday. “We want the EPA and this administration to put forth a course of action to prevent the state of Mississippi from ever doing this again.” Johnson was named among several resident complainants in the NAACP’s civil rights complaint against Mississippi. He said the state’s inaction and record of divestment in Jackson amounts to “systemic neglect.” “We believe that all citizens of this country should be entitled to clean, fresh drinking water,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately, we live in a state that is still dealing in racial politics. And as a result of that, you have state leaders who seek to penalize African American residents of the city of Jackson in a very discriminatory way.” Reeves said Thursday that the state took control of Jackson’s water system because of “absolute and total incompetence” of Jackson’s Democratic mayor and administration. The governor’s latest remarks are an escalation of a dispute between him and Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba over whether the state or the city will decide on a private firm to operate Jackson’s water system. ADVERTISEMENT “They have proven that they have no ability to manage the water system,” Reeves told reporters during an event at the Governor’s Mansion, according to a video of the event by WLBT-TV. In a federal complaint on September 27, the NAACP said Mississippi officials “all but assured” a drinking water calamity in Jackson by depriving the state’s majority-Black capital city of badly needed funds to upgrade its infrastructure. The organization asked the EPA to investigate the state’s alleged pattern of steering money to white communities with less need. The group said the state’s refusal to fund improvements in Jackson culminated in late August when the water system suffered a near-total collapse after a heavy rainstorm. Over 25 years, it said, Jackson received funds from an important federal program only three times. When Jackson tried to fund improvements itself, those efforts were repeatedly blocked by Mississippi state political leaders, according to the complaint. The NAACP wants the EPA to make sure that from now on, federal funds are distributed equitably. Reeves said Thursday that the state has bought chemicals and hired workers for the water plant since he declared the emergency after the city failed to do both of those things. The NAACP filed its complaint under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids recipients of federal funds from discriminating based on race or national origin. While previously the law was rarely used to pursue environmental matters, the Biden administration has increased its enforcement efforts in communities overburdened by pollution. Recently, the EPA said it had preliminary evidence that Louisiana state officials allowed air pollution in an industrial stretch of Louisiana to remain high and downplayed the threat to Black residents that live in the industrial section of the state commonly referred to as cancer alley. The agency has also opened up an investigation into Colorado’s air permitting program and into state and local officials in Alabama over chronic wastewater problems in majority-Black Lowndes County. Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.
Student loan forgiveness could help more than 40 million
More than 40 million Americans could see their student loan debt reduced — and in many cases eliminated — under the long-awaited forgiveness plan President Joe Biden announced Wednesday, a historic but politically divisive move in the run-up to the midterm elections. Fulfilling a campaign promise, Biden is erasing $10,000 in federal student loan debt for those with incomes below $125,000 a year, or households that earn less than $250,000. He’s canceling an additional $10,000 for those who received federal Pell Grants to attend college. It’s seen as an unprecedented attempt to stem the tide of America’s rapidly rising student debt, but it doesn’t address the broader issue — the high cost of college. Republicans quickly denounced the plan as an insult to Americans who have repaid their debt and to those who didn’t attend college. Critics across the political spectrum also questioned whether Biden has authority for the move, and legal challenges are virtually certain. Biden also extended a pause on federal student loan payments for what he called the “final time.” The pause is now set to run through the end of the year, with repayments to restart in January. “Both of these targeted actions are for families who need it the most: working and middle-class people hit especially hard during the pandemic,” Biden said at the White House Wednesday afternoon. The cancellation applies to federal student loans used to attend undergraduate and graduate school, along with Parent Plus loans. Current college students qualify if their loans were issued before July 1. For dependent students, their parents’ household income must be below $250,000. Most people will need to apply for the relief. The Education Department has income data for a small share of borrowers, but the vast majority will need to prove their incomes through an application process. Officials said applications will be available before the end of the year. Biden’s plan makes 43 million borrowers eligible for some debt forgiveness, with 20 million who could get their debt erased entirely, according to the administration. About 60% of borrowers are recipients of federal Pell Grants, which are reserved for undergraduates with the most significant financial need, meaning more than half can get $20,000 in relief. Sabrina Cartan, a 29-year-old media strategist in New York City, is expecting her federal debt to get wiped out entirely. When she checked the balance Wednesday, it was $9,940. Cartan used the loans to attend Tufts University, and with Biden’s plan, she will be able to help her parents repay the additional thousands they borrowed for her education. As a first-generation college student, she called it a “leveling moment.” “I know there are people who feel that this isn’t enough, and that is true for a lot of people,” said Cartan, who already has repaid about $10,000 of her loans. “I can say for me personally, and for a lot of people, that is a lot of money.” For Braxton Simpson, Biden’s plan is a great first step, but it’s not enough. The 23-year-old MBA student at North Carolina Central University has more than $40,000 in student loans. As an undergraduate student, she took jobs to minimize her debt, but at $10,000 a semester, the costs piled up. As a Black woman, she felt higher education was a requirement to obtain a more stable financial future, even if that meant taking on large amounts of debt, she said. “In order for us to get out of a lot of the situations that have been systemically a part of our lives, we have to go to school,” Simpson said. “And so we end up in debt.” The plan doesn’t apply to future college students, but Biden is proposing a separate rule that would reduce monthly payments on federal student debt. The proposal would create a new payment plan requiring borrowers to pay no more than 5% of their earnings, down from 10% in similar existing plans. It would forgive any remaining balance after ten years, down from 20 years now. It would also raise the floor for repayments, meaning no one earning less than 225% of the federal poverty level would need to make monthly payments. As a regulation, it would not require congressional approval. But it can take more than a year to finalize. Biden’s plan comes after more than a year of deliberation, with the president facing strong lobbying from liberals who wanted sweeping debt forgiveness, and from moderates and conservatives who questioned its basic fairness. Once a popular campaign promise during the presidential primary, the issue created an almost unwinnable situation. Some fellow Democrats criticized the plan Wednesday, saying it’s too costly and does little to solve the debt crisis. “In my view, the administration should have further targeted the relief, and proposed a way to pay for this plan,” said Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo. “While immediate relief to families is important, one-time debt cancellation does not solve the underlying problem.” Still, many Democrats rallied around it, including support from those who wanted Biden to go beyond $10,000. “I will keep pushing for more because I think it’s the right thing to do,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who had urged Biden to forgive up to $50,000 a person. “But we need to take a deep breath here and recognize what it means for the president of the United States to touch so many hard-working middle-class families so directly.” Proponents see cancellation as a matter of racial justice. Black students are more likely to take out federal student loans at higher amounts than their white peers. The NAACP, which pressed Biden to cancel at least $50,000 per person, said the plan is “one step closer” to lifting the burden of student debt. Derrick Johnson, the group’s president, urged Biden to cancel the debt quickly and without bureaucratic hurdles for borrowers. Biden’s decision to impose an income cap goes against objections from some who say adding the detailed application process to verify incomes could deter some borrowers who need help the most. The Biden administration defended the cap
White House faces bipartisan backlash on Haitian migrants
The White House is facing sharp condemnation from Democrats for its handling of the influx of Haitian migrants at the U.S. southern border after images of U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback using aggressive tactics went viral this week. Striking video of agents maneuvering their horses to forcibly block and move migrants attempting to cross the border has sparked resounding criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who are calling on the Biden administration to end its use of a pandemic-era authority to deport migrants without giving them an opportunity to seek asylum in the United States. At the same time, the administration continues to face attacks from Republicans, who say Joe Biden isn’t doing enough to deal with what they call a “crisis” at the border. Reflecting the urgency of the political problem for the administration, Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas said Tuesday the images “horrified” him, a seeming shift in tone from a day earlier when he and others were more sanguine about the situation at the border. It’s a highly uncomfortable position for the administration, led by a president who has set himself up as a tonic for the harshness of his predecessor. But immigration is a complex issue, one no administration has been able to fix in decades. And Biden is trapped between conflicting interests of broadcasting compassion while dealing with throngs of migrants coming to the country — illegally — seeking a better life. The provision in question, known as Title 42, was put in place by the Trump administration in March 2020 to justify restrictive immigration policies in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. But the Biden administration has used Title 42 to justify the deportation of Haitian migrants who in recent days have set up an encampment in and around the small city of Del Rio, Texas. The provision gives federal health officials powers during a pandemic to take extraordinary measures to limit the transmission of an infectious disease. A federal judge late last week ruled the regulation was improper and gave the government two weeks before its use was to be halted, but the Biden administration on Monday appealed the decision. “The Biden administration pushing back on this stay of expulsions is another example of broken promises to treat migrants with respect and humanity when they reach our borders to exercise their fundamental right to asylum,” said Karla Marisol Vargas, senior attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project and co-counsel on the litigation. NAACP President Derrick Johnson demanded a meeting with Biden to discuss the situation and called the treatment of the Haitian migrants “utterly sickening.” “The humanitarian crisis happening under this administration on the southern border disgustingly mirrors some of the darkest moments in America’s history,” he said in a statement. Shortly after the judge’s decision on Friday, Homeland Security officials formed a plan to begin immediately turning the groups of Haitian migrants around, working against the clock. But people kept coming. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, an administration ally, said images of the treatment of the migrants “turn your stomach” and called on the administration to discontinue the “hateful and xenophobic” policies of Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump. “The policies that are being enacted now — and the horrible treatment of these innocent people who have come to the border — must stop immediately,” he told the Senate on Tuesday. Trump essentially put a chokehold on immigration. He decreased the number of refugees admitted to a record low, made major changes to policy, and essentially shut down asylum. Biden has undone many of the Trump-era policies, but since his inauguration, the U.S. has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials. The Haitian migrants are the latest example. More than 6,000 Haitians and other migrants have been removed from the encampment in Del Rio, and Mayorkas predicted a “dramatic change” in the number of migrants there within the next two to four days as the administration continues the removal process. As the controversy swirled around him, Biden spent his Tuesday address at the U.N. General Assembly in New York calling for the global community to come together to defend human rights and combat injustice worldwide, declaring, “the future will belong to those who embrace human dignity, not trample it.” The remarks stood in notable contrast to images of the Border Patrol agents on horseback. Biden himself seemed to acknowledge the challenge his administration faces with immigration, offering a clipped response when asked by a reporter after his U.N. remarks to offer his reaction to the images. “We’ll get it under control,” he insisted. Vice President Kamala Harris also weighed in, telling reporters in Washington that she was “deeply troubled” by the images and planned to talk to Mayorkas about the situation. Harris has been tasked with addressing the root causes of migration to the U.S. and emphasized that the U.S. should “support some very basic needs that the people of Haiti have” that are causing them to flee their homes for the U.S. Videos and photos taken in recent days in and around Del Rio show Border Patrol agents confronting Haitians along the Rio Grande near a border bridge where thousands of migrants have gathered in hopes of entering the country. One Border Patrol agent on horseback was seen twirling his long leather reins in a menacing way at the Haitian migrants but not actually striking anyone. There was no sign in photos and videos viewed by The Associated Press that the mounted agents were carrying whips or using their reins as such when confronting the migrants. The agents, wearing chaps and cowboy hats, maneuvered their horses to forcibly block and move the migrants, almost seeming to herd them. In at least one instance, they were heard taunting the migrants. Asked about the images on Tuesday, Mayorkas told lawmakers that the issue had been “uppermost in my mind” ever since he had seen them. He said the department had alerted its inspector general’s
House passes bill bolstering landmark voting law
House Democrats have passed legislation that would strengthen a landmark civil rights-era voting law weakened by the Supreme Court over the past decade, a step party leaders tout as progress in their quest to fight back against voting restrictions advanced in Republican-led states. The bill, which is part of a broader Democratic effort to enact a sweeping overhaul of elections, was approved on a 219-212 vote, with no Republican support. Its Tuesday passage was praised by President Joe Biden, who said it would protect a “sacred right” and called on the Senate to “send this important bill to my desk.” But the measure faces dim prospects in that chamber, where Democrats do not have enough votes to overcome opposition from Senate Republicans, who have rejected the bill as “unnecessary” and a Democratic “power grab.” That bottleneck puts Democrats right back where they started with a slim chance of enacting any voting legislation before the 2022 midterm elections when some in the party fear new GOP laws will make it harder for many Americans to vote. But they still intend to try. Speaking from the House floor, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was imperative for Congress to counteract the Republican efforts, which she characterized as “dangerous” and “anti-democratic.” “Democracy is under attack from what is the worst voter suppression campaign in America since Jim Crow,” Pelosi said. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named for the late Georgia congressman who made the issue a defining one of his career, would restore voting rights protections that have been dismantled by the Supreme Court. Under the proposal, the Justice Department would again police new changes to voting laws in states that have racked up a series of “violations,” drawing them into a mandatory review process known as “preclearance.” The practice was first put in place under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But it was struck down by a conservative majority on the Supreme Court in 2013, which ruled the formula for determining which states needed their laws reviewed was outdated and unfairly punitive. The court did, however, say that Congress could come up with a new formula, which is what the bill does. A second ruling from the court in July made it more difficult to challenge voting restrictions in court under another section of the law. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Terri Sewell, said “old battles have indeed become new again,” enabled by the Supreme Court’s rulings. “While literacy tests and poll taxes no longer exist, certain states and local jurisdictions have passed laws that are modern-day barriers to voting,” said Sewell, an Alabama Democrat. In many cases, the new bill wouldn’t apply to laws enacted in the years since the court’s 2013 ruling. That likely includes the wave of new Republican-backed restrictions inspired by Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen 2020 election. But if signed into law along with Democrats’ other election bill, the For the People Act, many of those restrictions could be neutralized — and likely prevented from getting approved again. Both laws would likely face legal challenges. In the short term, the vote Tuesday was expected to soothe restive Democratic activists who have been frustrated by inaction on the issue in the Senate. NAACP President Derrick Johnson said he was “encouraged” by the bill’s passage. But he also offered a thinly veiled threat, pledging to watch closely as the Senate takes it up and “keep track of every yea and every nay” vote. “Make no mistake, we will be there, on the ground in 2022, in every state that needs a new Senator,” he said in a statement. Democrats’ slim 50-50 majority in the Senate means they lack the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. For months, progressives have called for scrapping the filibuster, but a number of moderate Democrats oppose the idea, denying the votes needed to do so. It’s also not clear that the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, as written, would be supported by all Democrats in the Senate, where there are no votes to spare. One provision in the bill would ban many types of voter ID laws, including those already on the books. That’s at odds with a proposal from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who is the chamber’s most conservative Democrat. He’s spent weeks working with Senate leadership to develop a more narrowly focused alternative to the For the People Act and has specifically called for a voter ID standard that would allow for people to use a document like a utility bill. Republicans, meanwhile, blasted the timing of the measure, noting that Pelosi called Democrats back from August recess to pass the bill, as well as to take votes on Democrats’ spending priorities when the U.S. is dealing with its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. “If there’s any moment in time to put an election aside, if there’s any moment of time to put politics aside, I would have thought today was this day,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Conservatives also criticized the bill as a departure from the 1965 voting law, which used minority turnout data as well as a place’s history of enacting discriminatory voting laws when determining which places would be subject to preclearance. The new bill, instead, leans heavily on looser standards, such as using the number of legal settlements and consent decrees issued in voting rights cases to pull places into preclearance. That would, Republicans argue, play into the hands of Democrats, who have built a sophisticated and well-funded legal effort to challenge voting rules in conservative-leaning states. Rep. Michelle Fischbach, a Minnesota Republican, predicted it would be a boon for Democratic advocacy groups and trial lawyers, who would “file as many objections as possible to manufacture litigation.” “It empowers the attorney general to bully states and seek federal approval before making changes to their own voting laws,” she said. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
