The Black Historical past of the Montgomery Brawl Folding Chair

The Montgomery Alabama Riverfront brawl that unfolded when a gaggle of White males attacked a Black dockworker over entry to a ship parking spot final Saturday, August 5, ignited a fervent response from numerous bystanders who shortly jumped into motion. The scene garnered worldwide headlines and memes aplenty, as social media customers have a good time the 16-year-old “Black Aquaman” who swam to the scene to defend the dockworker and everybody else who joined forces.

However the Web has appointed the unnamed Black man outfitted with a white folding chair as probably the most iconic fighter of the brawl, and the chair motif was shortly tailored into quite a lot of memes, fan artwork, merchandise, and even a tattoo.

In a single day, the folding chair has turn into the logo of the brawl that referred to as so many to motion in protection of a Black man who was abused for merely doing his job — and in addition a broader echo (each critical and unserious) of Black power, unity, and liberation within the face of centuries of White brutality that enabled this violent assault to kick off within the first place. Shirley Chisholm, the primary African-American lady in Congress and presidential candidate working for nomination in a serious occasion, even cited the common-or-garden folding chair in her well-known quote referencing the necessity to create space for oneself reasonably than ready for an invite to hitch: “In the event that they don’t offer you a seat on the desk, deliver a folding chair.” Seems to be like lots of people took Chisholm’s phrases to coronary heart … The chair has since been superimposed over pictures of civil rights activists like Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King Jr.

Many have identified that what introduced the brawl meme frenzy full circle is {that a} design of a folding chair was patented in 1911 by a Black American inventor named Nathaniel Alexander. (Word: The picture that’s being utilized in associated memes is definitely a photograph of Black inventor Lewis Howard Latimer. There are not any identified images of Alexander.)

Not a lot is thought of Alexander apart from the truth that he was a resident of Lynchburg, Virginia, however he utilized for a patent for his folding chair design on March 4, 1911. The patent, permitted on July 4 of that 12 months, features a technical draft of the design that was supposed for implementation in church buildings, Sunday faculties, auditoriums, and “locations the place appreciable singing is completed.” Alexander’s design included a ebook relaxation on the chair’s again for folks seated behind to make the most of, however neither his description nor his technical point out if the chair would have been mounted to the bottom or moveable.

Alexander’s folding chair design isn’t the primary of its type, although — nor was it the final. Moses S. Seaside of Brooklyn, New York, filed a patent software in 1857 for his design of a folding pew seat on a hinge, and Joseph F. A. Spaet, William F. Berry, and James T. Snoddy of Iowa filed a patent software in 1888 for the design of a moveable, collapsable chair with folding brackets that flatten the again and legs in opposition to the seat.

Probably the most recognizable type of the folding chair seems to have been invented by Ralph W. Dick in 1932 (and patent permitted by 1933) on behalf of the Louis Rastetter & Sons furnishings firm based mostly in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Dick’s modification showcases the chair’s seat folding as much as its again with brackets — it’s been optimized since then, clearly, however the common kind continues to be in use right now (for numerous causes, as evidenced in Montgomery).

In gentle of Black historical past’s function within the evolution of the folding chair and its symbolism, I feel we will agree with Phil Lewis’s tweet — it does belong in a museum. But when the chair can’t be preserved as a cultural artifact for future generations to understand and study from, at the very least there’s an limitless archive of memes to recollect it.