Community Skate @ Golden Gate: A legacy of love keeps rolling

by Beverly Freeman

The third Sunday of every month brings more than just soulful sounds, rhythmic beats and skate wheels rolling across Marin City’s Golden Gate Village Park. The “Community Skate @ Golden Gate” is more than an event — it’s a revival. A joyful return to one of African Americans’ most enduring traditions: roller skating. 

Answering a higher calling to produce a monthly skate party, Sharika S. Gregory launched “Community Skate @ Golden Gate” after the Father’s Day 2025 skate. These gatherings draw people from near and far to glide and groove together. With music echoing across the park, families and friends — young and old alike — proclaim a tradition that represents resilience, rhythm and freedom of expression.

Gregory’s Community Skate @ Golden Gate reminds us of how for decades roller rinks have been simple labyrinths — revolutionary sanctuaries of love and resilience. In Black communities, skating rinks are more than places to play — they are spaces to breathe easy, lean on one another, and let DJs transpose pain into poetry, struggle into motion. If one person fell, the floor cleared until they could stand again. Skating rinks are where so many learned balance and confidence, where neighbors lifted each other up, and where every lap fortified inner pride.

Marin City’s Golden Gate Village, an architectural masterpiece built in the 1960s, carries that same cultural weight. Once one of the 1,200 historically Black communities in the nation, today it stands as one of a little over two dozen that remain. Like the skating rinks, Golden Gate Village has been a kinder space — a place to rise, to praise, and to prop one another up.

The legacy extends through the rhythm of skate wheels on pavement, echoing the resilience of the Black shipyard workers who established Marin City after World War II. Their faces now look out from the Marin City Legacy Banners — featuring images of those original builders whose spirits are alive, displayed high above the parking lot beside the park. They planted roots that, five generations later, still hold, still nourish through Community Skate @ Golden Gate. For it’s more than just community fun; it is cultural preservation — reviving a tradition of love, joy and freedom at a time when all three are urgently needed.

Desirous of reflecting the origin of magnificence present in Marin City, in 2018, Sharika S. Gregory planted the first seeds of what would become Community Skate @ Golden Gate. She began with praise parties near the legendary “200 Lot” — afternoons filled with food, family, laughter, and music. Out of that joy came her vision: to use roller skating as more than recreation, but also as a tool for unity, health, heritage and honor.

Since then, Gregory has poured herself into producing more than a dozen events that bring relief and revival. She has given away more than 50 pairs of skates to young and old alike, keeping the event alive with only modest resources — a quiet sacrifice made from love. To many, she is more than an organizer; she is an Ambassador of Love, showing what it means to pour into a community without hesitation.

September’s Community Skate @ Golden Gate, held Sept. 21, International Day of Peace, featured a prayer led by Gregory and carried a special resonance, reminding me of a time while raising my sons in Los Angeles. I would take them to World on Wheels (WOW) for the famous “7 to 7” skate parties. We (the adults) would leave our children with them overnight, for we knew they were in good hands. When I later learned it had closed for good, I was deeply saddened. I took for granted it would always be there.

That’s why I want the world to know: Only in Golden Gate Village could an event like Community Skates thrive — and prove to be precious. and only endure with care, nurturing and support. With only eight roller rinks left across Northern California, this event is more than entertainment. It bridges divides, spreads love through rhythm and rolls resilience forward for generations to come.

Deep gratitude goes to Gregory and to supporters like professional skating coach Melinda Speer, who donates her time to teach youth balance and teamwork; Connor Spence of Skate Escape in San Rafael, who provides loaner skates and will host ‘Community Skate @ Skate Escape’ on the third Sunday of each month from November 2025 through January 2026; Daryl Compton; and other volunteers who help create memories as lasting as the music.

Come join in — not just to skate, but to celebrate love, culture, heritage and community. To keep this legacy rolling forward, contact: Sharika S. Gregory, 510-467-5804, Sharikasgregory@gmail.

#LoveOnTheMove #SkateAtGoldenGate

Beverly “indie b” Freeman is a playwright, vocalist, artist, and community mover and shaker based in Marin City.

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Source: https://sfbayview.com/2025/10/community-skate-golden-gate-a-legacy-of-love-keeps-rolling/