Welcome to the world of roller skating in the D, where skaters don’t just circle the rink, they create magic on wheels.
“A lot of the new skaters think it’s new, but it’s not new. We (have) been doing this for a very, very long time,” said Janine Folks, the third generation owner of Rollercade Detroit. How about 67 years! Folks says her father Earl, who met her mom at Rollercade, had her in skates since she learned to walk.
“A lot of us are products of our parents meeting at the rink, then they got us into skating,” Folks said.
Folks’ grandparents, Johnnie Mae and Leroy Folks, had a passion for skating, but originally planned to open the space as a dancehall in the 50′s. You could say Devine intervention took over.
“There was a rink not far from here maybe about a mile from here over in River Rouge that burned down and then the neighborhood kids was like, we need a place to skate, and so we opened our doors and said come on,” said Earl Folks, secnd generation owner of Rollercade Skating Rink.
To this day, skaters are still coming through those doors in droves, and enjoying every bit of it.
Rollercade is the oldest, longest continually ran black owned and operated roller-skating rink in the U.S., and they don’t plan on going anywhere, anytime soon.
“His direction is taking us places I never dreamed of,” said Earl Folks, referring to his nephew Kyle Black.
“That’s something that we here at Rollercade put together, working with Bedrock. They had a vision for what they wanted to do here in the city, and then we had a vision of something we wanted to bring to life,” said Kyle Black, third generation owner Rollercade Detroit, and operator of Rollout Detroit at Monroe Street Midway. Now Rollout Detroit at the Monroe Street Midway just opening for its second season in the heart of Downtown.
To learn more about Rollercade, and to see April Morton lace up her skates and hit the rink, watch the video above.