Today we’d like to introduce you to Black Girls Skate.
Black Girls Skate was started in 2019 by DJ Gooden as an Instagram page. After a year of posting, they saw a big growth in the page and asked their best friend from college Nicole Humphrey to support. After looking at how much growth and attention the page was getting the two wanted to find more people who could contribute to capturing and publishing more skater content. After doing a callout on social media DJ and Nicole onboarded 20 ambassadors from 15 different cities and three countries. This group would meet once a month just checking in on everything from favorite music to specific skate goals. After about three months DJ and Nicole were inspired to organize Black Girls Skate into something more tangible. With the help of this new crew of ambassadors organized and facilitated five meetups in 2020 making stops in Atlanta, Philly, New York. Ohio and Chicago. After these series of events DJ and Nicole started Black Girls Skate annual popup tour launching BGS officially as a non-profit agency.BGS core mission is to heighten the visibility, increase safety practices and build equity for skaters who identify as Womxn, nonbinary, trans and Black and/or of color.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It has not been a smooth road. A joyful one. However, we’ve had to sacrifice a lot. As we both as founders hold FT jobs and new entrepreneurs, we have had to balance our personal ambitions v. what we have been inspired to build within the Black Girls Skate community. From all the research to finding support from others who are willing to contribute at a high level. Choosing to build globally to jumpstart was something we knew would be difficult but learning how to best utilize our resources and platform has been the challenge yet rewarding. Additionally, getting full support. As we are just starting and our work centers around all skate styles, it’s been interesting navigating conversations for support with folx used to most initiatives being so centered around skateboarding. Also money is always a challenge, especially when you are building something from the ground up. We have seen an overwhelming amount of support in-kind but are still pushing from grant and donation support that will allow us to scale our impact.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Black Girls Skate is a growing nonprofit agency centered on heightening the visibility, increasing safety practices and building equity for skaters who identify as womxn, nonbinary, trans and Black and/or of color. We are most known for our annual popup tour which includes popup meetups and giveaways. Additionally, our carebox program which includes a unique gifting experience of swag and skate hardware meant to inspire and active skate practice. So far since Sept. 2020, we have given out close to 150 care boxes throughout ten cities.
What has set us apart is our internal focus on black skaters of all skate styles and skill levels this includes skateboarding, longboarding, quad skating, figure skating, derby rollers, snowboarding, speed skating and roller skating.
Our work specializes in community networking and transformative experiences. We hope to begin to push our efforts more towards product manufacturing, content creation and collaborative event production.
We are most proud of how our online community has been able to move into the physical realm. From the BGS comments to in person meetings. Skaters are being inspired to connect and support one another far beyond liking a post or attending an event. Life long connections and invaluable experiences are being created just by us making space.
Anyone reading should know that Black Girls Skate is a growing non-profit, we are hoping to rally as much support as we can not to just get more of our targeted audience skating but to create pathways for their creative entrepreneurship. We are just as interested in the practice as we are in who’s manufacturing the hardware and shooting/ featuring in the campaigns. Our work is holistic.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
We got a chance to hang in LA for a week for our 2021 popups. However, our creator and co-founder DJ lived out here for two years and was inspired to create the BGS page while living there and falling in love with the scene. We both agree that the traffic is trash. But we loooove the accessibility to leisure and outdoor sports. To literally be able to hang at the beach at 5 am or pitch a tent and be able to hang out all day. Pure joy. We cannot wait to come back through LA.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@blackgirlsskate.
org - Website: blackgirlsskate.org
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/
black_girls_skate - Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/blackgirlsskate - Twitter: https://twitter.com/
blackgirlsskate - Youtube: https://youtube.com/
channel/ UCq2GBqnUfwwNxKRTzs3j7Sw - SoundCloud: https://
soundcloud.com/blackgirlsskate - Other: https://www.tiktok.com/
@black_girls_skate?lang=en
Image Credits:
1 submitted – Qurissy Lopez addition 3 submitted – Ruby Ella
