Sad One Year After the Big Fight at Montgomery’s Riverfront

Last year on August 5, there was a big fight at the riverfront in Montgomery, Alabama in United States. It all started when some white people on small boats wouldn’t move to let a big riverboat dock.

The riverboat’s helper, a Black man named Dameion Pickett, tried to move the small boats. Then the people on the small boats attacked him.

Many people on the big riverboat took videos of the fight with their phones. The videos spread quickly on the internet. People all over the world saw them and talked about race problems in America.

Here’s what happened to the people involved in the fight:

• Richard Roberts had to go to jail for 32 days on weekends. He also has to do 100 hours of community work.
• Mary Todd has to take classes to learn how to control her anger.
• Zachery Shipman and Allen Todd have to do 100 hours of community work and take anger classes too.
• Reggie Ray, who hit people with a folding chair, has to do 50 hours of community work.

No one was badly hurt in the fight. The FBI looked into it and said it wasn’t a hate crime

One year later, some people in Montgomery are trying to bring the community together. Candyce Anderson is organizing a walk to remember what happened and help people heal.

Dameion Pickett, the man who was attacked, said on TV that he was just trying to do his job when the fight started. A teenager named Aaren Hamilton Rudolph even jumped in the river to help Pickett.

The fight became famous on the internet. People made jokes, songs, and even dances about it. But it also made many people think about how we treat each other and how we can do better.

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