A man decided to get ink of the highly recognized folding chair seen in a video of the Montgomery, Alabama brawl — and everybody is talking about it online.
Don Kajuan and his tattoo artist @camberry_ink shared a video of the tattoo on Instagram earlier this week. The design included the words “Montgomery, Alabama” over the chair with the date “Aug 5, 2023.” It references the melee that occurred last weekend at Riverfront Park, where a Black boat worker was attacked by a group of white boaters.
“Newest addition to my collection,” Kajuan, @donkajuan, boasted in the caption. People flooded the Dallas-based musician’s comments section praising the tattoo because they thought it was legendary and hilarious, while others called it “lame” or “cringy.”
“This will always be a special tattoo to me, and it’s very sentimental,” Kajuan explained in a separate post. “It’s with me for life.”
Like many others who joked online, he dubbed it an important day in “Black history.”
The explosive brawl was recorded from multiple angles and has widely circulated the internet, resulting in a slew of memes. News reports say the fight erupted over a dock space for the Harriott II Riverboat, a city cruise attraction.
Footage of the incident show Black men — including a 16-year-old colleague who swam to the dock — gather and defend the worker identified as Damien Pickett. One viral video showed a Black man hit a man then a woman on their heads with a folding chair during the confrontation.
“The Montgomery Police Department acted swiftly to detain several reckless individuals for attacking a man who was doing his job,” Mayor Steven Reed said in a statement on Sunday, Aug. 6.
According to police, 23-year-old Allen Todd and 25-year-old Zachary Shipman are in custody and were charged. Another man, 48-year-old Richard Roberts, was charged with two counts of third degree assault. In addition, a 21-year-old woman, identified as Mary Todd, turned herself in to police and was also charged in connection to the incident.
The man with the folding chair has been called in for questioning.
Honoring the brawl does not stop at the tattoo. Other people online are making T-shirts, rap songs, dance challenges and nail designs as an ode to the scuffle.
