The Inventor Of The High Five

The high five is ubiquitous. It's a gesture that permeates every social environment - the workplace, the bar, the middle school kickball field - and it seems to be appropriate in almost any situation.
Your friend got married? High five. You chugged an entire liter of IPA? High five. Since its inception, the hand-slapping maneuver has taken on multiple iterations and has never fallen out of style. But tracing the origins of the high five reveals a riveting, heroic, dark story that seems to be everything the joyous gesture is not.