The documentary film, “The People Could Fly” explores Black roller skating culture through archival footage and film from today’s skating scene.
“When I had the opportunity to, in 2020, actually make a film about my hometown, the closest thing in my heart was a memory of the ritual of roller skating,” the film’s director Imani Dennison said.
They made “The People Could Fly” through a New York-based, Black-led company called Oxosi. Oxosi was commissioning filmmakers to create work centered around their hometowns.
Dennison grew up in the Newburg neighborhood and said they “religiously” spent time at Robben’s Roost with other teens in the 2000s.
“Because I grew up roller skating, and I think the community and just the act of it all is so special, I was like, let me actually revisit this and make a film about the history of roller skating,” Dennison said.
They turned to Louisville's long-standing roller skating community.
“Everyone opened up with open arms about it, and allowed me to come and document and just share space,” Dennison said. “Since then, it's really snowballed into this more in-depth history.”
One of the first people Dennison reached out to was LaNeisha Beasley, president of the Louisville Rail Ridaz.
Like Dennison, Beasley’s passion for roller skating started young.
Beasley said going to the rink became a Sunday night ritual for her. While her friends headed out to the club with fake IDs, she laced up her skates.
“I'm the only one that stuck with it, because they chose to go that way, and I chose to go the other way,” Beasley said.
Beasley has worked to keep Black skating culture alive in Louisville.
“It's a community of purpose. I've met so many great, great, great, great friends, and you know that now is my family, because I chose to ride the rails,” Beasley said.
She said roller skating has been a lifesaver for her and others and she believes if people she grew up with had stuck with it, then they might still be alive today.
“I've always stated, it's therapy, it’s something that people, individuals, can just escape,” Beasley said.
Beasley, now considered a staple within the skating community, is using her platform to ensure the lessons she was taught aren’t forgotten.
When she’s out skating she mentors younger skaters on the way she was taught to do couple’s skating and trios to ensure those cultural recipes aren’t lost.
“I think that's my favorite part, actually skating now, is that I'm paying homage to my OGs by being an OG,” Beasley said.
Charita Burns Gresham’s family saw the start of a lot OG skaters' careers at the rink.
Her family owned the now-closed Broadway Roller Rink.
Burns Gresham said she grew up sheltered, but one school trip to Fontaine Ferry Roller Rink had her begging her dad to open a roller rink in the West End.
“What do we have to do? We don't have anything to do in the West End. What? What do we have to do for fun, this clean fun?” Burns Gresham asked her dad.
He agreed and bought an old club down the street from their house and turned it into a roller rink.
“And the next few years of my life, I spent all day, every day, every holiday, everything at the roller skating rink,” Burns Gresham said. “It was so amazing that we had something to do, and the kids in the neighborhood had something to do, and we made so many friends.”
Burns Gresham said her brother met his wife at Broadway Roller Rink. They hosted weddings and repasts, meals following a funeral, at the rink. And on Saturday’s children would be there all day as parents dropped them off in the morning and let them skate late into the night.
“They called my mama, Mama Burns,” Burns Gresham said. “She would take some of the skaters home on the weekends because she was mama. It was like a second home.”
When Broadway Roller Rink closed its doors, Burns Gresham said people showed up to take a piece of the brick building home with them.
While the physical building is gone, the legacy of the Broadway Roller Rink has stayed in people’s minds.
And people like Beasley and Dennison are working to capture those stories before they disappear.
They said archiving Black culture and history is critical.
“It's wildly important in these times, especially with the like book banning and super right-wing political powers that, like always want to erase the legacy of what Black people have done in this country,” Dennison said.
They said it’s important these things are documented for young people to be a visual evidence of history.
“We need to see ourselves a lot of times to will our imaginations into what's possible,” Dennison said. “It's just important to archive it, to document it, to pass it down, to preserve it, to keep it safe, to speak about it.”
“The People Could Fly” is screening at the Speed Cinema on Sunday.
