In honor black history month, this Roller Shawty post will discuss the decades of roller skating. Although roller skating is a trendy and easy hobby to pick up, it has a long and wild history backing it, especially in regards to black communities. Join us as we take you through the history of roller skating, roller rinks, and the impact the sport has had in recent years.
African American Culture, Jam Skating, and Skateland U.S.A.
Image by drobotdean on Freepik
It’s difficult to imagine the history of roller skate culture and how Decades of Skate Culture Has Affected Roller Rinks without thinking about its tie to African American culture.
In the 1940’s and 50’s, African Americans protested against and had sit-ins to fight for the right to be in roller rinks. Throughout the 1960’s roller rinks remained segregated, many of the rinks didn’t allow African Americans in. Some roller rinks held segregated nights. Some of which were called “Soul Nights”, “Martin Luther King Night”, or “Adult Nights”. They allowed African Americans to skate once a week. It was a battle for roller rinks to become de-segregated during the civil rights era. Documentaries like United Skates show the importance of roller skating for black and brown communities. Checkout African American History Roller Skate Museum to learn about black culture and their history with roller skating.
This brings us to the 50’s where things were barely starting to change. In 1955 in Detroit, The Rollercade was opened, and it was the first African American owned roller skating rink. The rink allowed African Americans to roller skate every single day. The Segregation that occurred, forced Black Americans to create their own style of roller skating, make music to jam out to. It created a roller skating culture that African Americans understood and grew to love which led these skating techniques like jam skating to become popular in today’s skating culture.
Craig Schweisingger opened Skateland U.S.A to the public on Nov 16, 1984. Gang activity was at its peak in Los Angeles. Before Skateland became a world famous roller rink it started off as a bowling lane alley. The opening of Skateland helped the local community by providing a form of entertainment for the community.
Roller Rinks helped influenced early hip-hop culture
Skateland U.S.A had a helping hand in influencing early hip-hop culture, rappers like Queen Latifah who did a performance with Mixmaster performed at Skateland USA. Groups like C.I.A and Easy- E and N.W.A were born and thrived at Skateland. It gave them a place to perform. These are just a few of the many artists who got their career started at Skateland U.S.A. The roller rink featured over 2,000 concerts, album release parties and radio events.
Sadly all good things must come to an end. Compton’s crime was increasing a few employees were caught stealing from the till to support drug addictions. The roller skating staff was held hostage by a drug lord for a bag that contained $15,000 dollars. The bag was returned with the money later that night after Schweisinger let his employees know that no consequences would be held as long as the money was returned. Skateland came to close shortly after for good, after Tone-Loc performed on Christmas in 1988. Schweisingger went down to Mexico to sell 500 pairs of skates for a roller rink in Tijuana.
Skateland U.S.A was an important place for the community in Compton. It helped locals find a way to express themselves through roller skating and creating music. By finding a local roller skating community where they could share a common interest and not to be discriminated against for the way they looked, Skateland U.S.A offered a safe haven for black community, also a place where some people could escape from their home lives. Skateland will be an important part of the roller skating community, Compton, and Black American communities.
Adult Skate Nights
Originally it started off being called “Black Night.” Which was switched to code names like “Martin Luther King Night.” and “Soul Night.” It started in the 1950’s during the civil rights movement. Roller rinks offered one night per week where the black community was allowed to roller skate. Because of segregation certain clothing and music was discriminated against at roller rinks. Roller skating on the streets and in the city became popular and a way for people to be able to express themselves and have freedom. A great example of someone who practiced expressing themselves through roller skating while doing it freely was Ledger Smith aka “The Roller Man.” He was 27 years old when he decided he wanted to roller skate 700 miles from Chicago to attend Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. in Washington D.C. for the civil rights movement in 1963.
Ledger began his trip on Aug 17th. Newspapers wrote about the “Roller Man” during his journey and NAACP officers escorted him along the way. The Baltimore newspaper did report that Ledger received rude remarks while passing through Indiana. He was almost hit by a car in another circumstance. It’s not clear what happened during the encounter. Ledger completed 685 miles of his roller skating trip while holding a sign which read “I’m skating to Washington, D.C. for civil rights, 1963, N.A.A.C.P.” Ledger was a fire hoop performer. He was an entertainer who performed on roller skates, before he decided to commit to the 700 mile journey for freedom. He was married and father to three children. His wife came to the march by train where they both watched Martin Luther King make history in front of 250,000 people.
The history with black culture and how Decades of Skate Culture Has Affected Roller Rinks can be traced back to the civil rights movements. It is interesting to see how a hobby can change in the span of decades and the movement it can create for its people filled with passion. This brings us to the 20th century and roller skate culture.
20th Century Roller Skate Culture
While black culture and skating have always been intrinsically linked. We can’t forget about the national sweep of roller skating across all parts of America in the 20th century.
In this documentary, roller skating is presented in a different light than you might imagine. The narrator paints roller skating in the 50’s as a wholesome activity for skaters of all ages. While roller skating wasn’t always this idyllic for everyone, the majority of roller skating was viewed positively.
Roller skating was incredibly popular with the teenagers of the 1950’s. Not only did it allow them to go out and get close to their dates. Their parents didn’t seem to mind. After all, their teens were getting exercise and were having fun. All without being too close.
As far as African American culture and skating were concerned, things weren’t too kind in the 20th century. Even after segregation ended in the United States, the tension was high. Music choices, wheel preference, and even skate style were all being attacked by roller rink owners. This led many skaters in the black community to seek out their own roller rinks.
Drive In Restaurants and Roller Skating
Among other culturally significant icons from the 50’s, roller rinks represented a different mindset. A lot of value was put on social events. Roller rinks, dance floors, and drive-ins were all representative of those ideals.
After the grueling war efforts of the 1940’s, the drive-in restaurant became a symbol of modern Americanism. There was a growing societal pressure to have families with a growing number of kids. However, feeding these large families would become challenging.
Between the busy household dynamic of the 50’s. The growing American ideals, drive-in restaurants were the perfect solution for the average family.
So what did drive-in restaurants mean for families in the 50’s? And what did they have to do with skate culture.
These new drive-in restaurants had no indoor seating, and many places to park cars. After ordering. A carhop would bring the food out in trays or bags, which you would often enjoy in your car. These carhops oftentimes would be on roller skates for better mobility.
To most Americans, the drive-in restaurant embodied the fast-paced convenience of suburban life. In a post-war world, many families needed novelties such as these. It was more than a distraction, however. This shift also brought on the popularity of all sorts of social events and designated places to do them. Least of these new social centers was the roller rink.
Why are Roller Rinks Getting Less Popular?
To talk about roller rinks in a post-Covid world, we first need to set the scene. It was early summer 2020. Global quarantine had been in effect since March. At first, teens were thrilled to hear that they wouldn’t be going back to school. They had all the time in the world to dedicate to social media, games, fashion, or anything else that captured their imagination. It was a teenage dream.
By summertime, many people were becoming bored of their usual, indoorsy activities. TikTok and its “aesthetic culture” was thriving in this environment, but people were dying to get outdoors and get some exercise. This is when many young adults and teens turned to roller skating. It was easy and relatively cheap to start, safe and fun to do by yourself, and skates (and their matching outfits) were visually pleasing in a time where cottagecore and similar aesthetics ruled all.
TikTok was suddenly flooded with figurative boatloads of roller skating videos. What was once almost primarily a social sport became isolated, just like everything else had at that time. Roller skates of all kinds were flying off store shelves. Making and watching videos of skating seemed to bring back just a bit of the unity that the youths of the pandemic were missing.
Roller skating in the summer of 2020 sparked a joy in the weary teens of the quarantine era, who had become experts at solo skating in outdoor areas. Unfortunately, that’s not the only reason roller rinks have become less popular. As mentioned earlier, semi-segregated roller rinks led to a lot of tension in the black skating community. So what effect did this have on the community, and why is it still impactful today?
The Fate of Roller Rinks
Black communities have been skating together for decades, creating distinct styles of skating. Music has always been a big determining factor for who goes to what skating rinks. If music that’s popular in black communities isn’t being played regularly in skating rinks. Those particular rinks aren’t often frequented by black skaters.
While the pseudo-segregation regarding music choices and adult skate nights has been an issue for a while. This isn’t a problem in every skating rink. In Detroit, for example, there are plenty of skating rinks that allow hip hop beats and small wheels. Anywhere that there’s a strong black community, there seems to follow black-owned skating rinks. The fierce defense of these skating rinks has become a source of liberation and pride for many roller skaters.
As more people are brought into the new generation of roller skaters. Issue regarding black roller skate culture has been cropping up. There does appear to be a new bias towards, or at least an influx, of white roller skaters on TikTok. While there have never been rules on who’s allowed to roller skate and who’s not. It’s important to remember the history behind roller rinks and the prejudice that often surrounded them.
It may be an algorithm issue, or it could be the sheer population of new, white skaters popping up. Either way, educating yourself and following black influencers is the best way to support the community. An example of a popular influencer roller skater would be Oumi Janta. During the pandemic Oumi was outside jamming out so effortlessly enjoying her freedom to skate outdoors. Bring some spark during these uncertain times. She sparked joy and excitement for others like Roller Shawty to get back into roller skating.
Whether you’re new to roller skating or you’re a veteran. We hope you were as passionate reading it as we were writing it!
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