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How Black Americans use roller skating as a form of community and activism By Asha Swann If you saw roller skaters effortlessly dancing through your social media feeds over summer 2020, you weren’t alone. Millennials and Gen Z are the latest group to partake in the classic pastime of roller skating. Coinciding with iconic fashion and music of the disco movement, it isn’t hard to see the appeal. In the 1970s, roller skating and roller derby swept the world, giving people a new way to express themselves through movement and dance. For the new generation, roller skating is excellent uncharted territory. While social media has certainly propelled skating back into the mainstream, it conveniently ignores the consistency of the sport through the last several decades in southern Black communities. Jasmine Moore and Marician Brown are two California-based roller skaters, whose followings on social media have led a never-ending string of viral videos. The history of roller skating holds a unique spot in both Brown and Moore’s history, as well as Black history overall — a fact that has gone largely unacknowledged in mainstream media for decades, according to Brown and Moore. Brown believes social media has helped connect lovers of roller skating from around the world, giving an incredible resurgence to the sport.
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Brown says that going to rinks in the South as a kid was very different from the carefree era of TikTok skaters today. When she was growing up, she couldn’t look to YouTube for instructions, she says. “I’m 24, and every time I went to the roller skating rink when I was younger, it was very different,” Brown explained. “[Now there’s] good music, good instructors and people who are willing to teach you. I didn’t grow up with that.” Before looking at roller skating’s popularity across TikTok, it’s important to take historical context into account. According to a 2014 article published by The Atlantic, roller skating was simply inaccessible to anyone poor or Black before the Civil Rights movement — partially due to Jim Crow legislation, but also partly due to labour laws. The majority of the American population was forced to work long, grueling hours for measly wages. If you were Black, these wages were even more pathetic. Take a look at the Roaring 20s that saw massive economic growth, consumerism and the birth of some of America’s first roller rinks. In 1923, the average worker was a white male, earning $34 per week.
