Group remembers first anniversary of Montgomery riverfront brawl

A group called Feminine Flow Experience organized an event to remember the first anniversary of the Montgomery riverfront brawl.

Late yesterday afternoon, they gathered at the Court Square Fountain for prayer before walking to the beat of a drum down Commerce Street to the banks of the Alabama River, where they dropped roses into the water before gathering into what they called a gratitude circle.

The brawl broke out on August 5, 2023, on the dock that the city’s Harriott II riverboat uses. According to eyewitnesses, the riverboat’s co-captain told people using a pontoon boat that they needed to move their boat from where it was at the dock so that the riverboat could return to shore.

The boaters were accused of refusing to move, which led the co-captain to get himself to shore. When investigators say he started trying to move the pontoon boat himself, the brawl broke out.

Several people involved faced charges in municipal court and were generally given suspended sentences that included probation, community service, anger management classes and the payment of court costs. Some said there was a racial component to the incident because the co-captain was Black.

Members of Feminine Flow Experience tied the fight to Montgomery’s history of slavery, saying Commerce Street was used to transport cotton before slavery was abolished and served as the path former enslaved Africans walked to the auction house.

They said their walk served as a remembrance of the pain and violence but also for the healing that they say allows the world to move compassionately towards change.

The group had held a similar event on August 5 last year, just before the brawl broke out.

“Two hours later, the brawl broke out and one of the things that we like to think is no one was brutally maimed or gravely harmed and that the love and the peace in our prayers that day had something to do with that. So, we’re just commemorating that event and hoping for more peace, more love, and more good vibes,” Ce Anderson, the founder of Feminine Flow Experience, said.