CNN’s Sara Sidner Rips Trump ‘Young Racist’ Attack on Fani Willis As Reason Black People Rally Around Montgomery Boat Brawl

CNN anchor Sara Sidner ripped ex-President Donald Trump’s attack on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as an example of why Black people feel “under attack” and have rallied around the boat dock brawl that started when a group of White boaters attacked a Black man — riverboat Co-Captain Damien Pickett.

During a speech in New Hampshire, Trump attacked D.A. Willis — who is reportedly poised to indict Trump for election cromes — by calling her a “young racist” and making o ther false smears against her

On Tuesday night’s edition of CNN Tonight, Sidner prefaced her interview with Montgomery Alabama Police Chief Darryl Albert by laying out the cultural significance of the brawl, and citing Trump’s rant as an example of why it has had such a rallying effect:

What happened on a Montgomery, Alabama, boat dock this weekend has captured the attention of millions of people and has put Montgomery again at the center of conversations around race.

The chief of police there says there’s not enough evidence to charge a hate crime, but social media is on fire with commentary. Black folks, in particular, are calling what happened by many names, the Montgomery Brawl, the Alabama Dock Wallop, and the Alabama Sweet Tea Party. An anthem has been written about it. Art is being made. And there are odes to the folding chair inventor, Nathaniel Alexander, who was a Black man.

Why is a story about a fight on a boat dock in a small American town creating all this reaction?

It has a lot to do with many Black and brown folks feeling like they’re under attack in different ways right now, from whitewashing American history in Florida, to a famous country singer using imagery of Black protesters, warning them what would happen if they did that in a small town, to the hopelessness of crime affecting Black communities, and this latest slight just today.

These are Donald Trump’s words on the campaign trail and about the Black female DA in Georgia:

DONALD TRUMP (CLIP): They say there’s a young woman, a young racist in Atlanta. She’s a racist.

And this is a person that wants to indict me. She’s got a lot of problems. But she wants to indict me to try and run for some other office.

SIDNER: It is hard to fight against all of that, but, in this case, Black people in particular showed up for each other. Black bystanders, men and women, jumped in to help the Black co-captain who was just trying to do his job.

He faced an apparently unprovoked attack by a white man, and then a mob of people jumped onto him and beat him down, until Black bystanders ran, even swam to his aid.

Above the melee, both Black and white people took video, doing their part, so that, when police did show up, they could see what really happened and how it started.

When Sidner asked Chief Albert about hate crimes charges, the chief said the incident didn’t “meet the threshold” but that could change.

Sidner also asked the chief why he thinks the incident has resonated the way it has, and Chief Albert cited the city’s status as a historical Civil Rights battleground:

SIDNER: Chief Albert, I’m curious just to get your take on why you think this has turned into a viral video that people are discussing on an hourly basis over the past three days.

What do you think it is about what happened there in Montgomery that has really sparked a lot of conversation about this?

ALBERT: Montgomery is the birthplace of the civil rights movement. There’s no doubt we have a lot of civil rights icons here.

We have the Legacy Museum. We have a lot of different items in terms of Rosa Parks and Court Square downtown. So, what happened here in the past left an impression on this city. It’s left an impression on this country. So, of course, folks from the community, they’re very concerned. They want to make sure that we do the right thing.

And we want to do the right thing. That’s why we’re slow and methodical. That’s why we’re making sure we’re reaching out to each and every one of our local, state, and federal partners to make sure we get this right from the start.

Watch above via CNN Tonight.