One more Question About the “Montgomery Tea Party”
Where were the White “Allies?”
Like just about every interested person in the country, I’ve seen the video of the “Montgomery Sweet Tea Party,” “The Slamma in Alabama,” “Fade in the Water,” and the other inventive titles given to the August 5th brawl.
Briefly, some white pleasure boaters parked their boat in a spot that blocked the space where a large passenger boat, the Harriott II, needed to dock. Despite being asked to move their boat several times from the ship’s loudspeaker, the white boaters refused. When a black man, who was the co-captain of the commercial boat, asked the white boaters, sometimes vehemently, to clear the space, and they still refused, he began the motion to untie it from the dock.
Much unpleasantness ensued.
Like most black people, I had several reactions. One was my naive disbelief that anybody would show such blatant disrespect to a black man in front of witnesses. I guess I haven’t learned. We know how people act when they think no one’s looking, but that one was a surprise. Another was a feeling of absolute justification that the white perpetrators got what they asked…
