Black, white neighborhoods team up for skatepark for West Baltimore

That warm day in June 2013, West Baltimore neighborhood leader Marvin L. "Doc" Cheatham was campaigning for the House of Delegates on the other side of town when he heard someone calling him: "Doc!"

"Who here knows me in a majority-white neighborhood?" Cheatham thought. He turned around and saw a few Black teenagers on skateboards.

They had ridden about 3½ miles from their neighborhood, Easterwood, to the skatepark in North Baltimore’s Hampden. When they found out Cheatham was running for office, they asked him if he could get a skatepark built in Easterwood.

That’s when Cheatham found himself making a promise. He told the children, whom he nicknamed the four musketeers, that he would figure out how to get a skatepark in their neighborhood — even if he didn’t get elected.

The exchange was followed by years of work, and the Baltimore Department of Recreation and Parks ultimately took on the project, with plans now underway to construct a skatepark next year in Easterwood Park.

"I admit, I did not know how to do this at first," said Cheatham, 70, a longtime civil rights leader and CEO of the Matthew Henson Community Development Corp., a nonprofit working in West Baltimore.

'Let's go!'

It’s happening because Cheatham teamed up with Stephanie Murdock, founder of a nonprofit volunteer group Skatepark of Baltimore and a key force behind the Hampden skatepark. For the past few years, Murdock and others in the Hampden skating community have showed Cheatham the ropes, attended community meetings in Easterwood and supported the quest.

Cheatham and Murdock, 38, spent months scouting vacant blocks across West Baltimore.

"I told her what my vision was, to build one in my neighborhood, and she said, ‘Let’s go!’ … Two diverse communities will be coming together to benefit our youth," Cheatham said, adding that they plan to have experienced skaters from Hampden go to Easterwood to help teach children how to skateboard.

"This will be introducing Black kids to white kids, and also introducing Black kids to skateboarding," he said.

For Cheatham, it’s an equity issue in a city where he says mostly Black neighborhoods often have been neglected. Skateparks have been in mostly white neighborhoods like Hampden and Carroll Park in Southwest Baltimore.

That disparity caught the attention of Reginald Moore, director of Recreation and Parks, when the idea was brought to him. He sees skateboard parks as a strong diversity tool. "That’s the beauty of the skatepark," he said. "They bring everybody out, and it’s not white or Black or rich or poor. It’s just a fun amenity for everyone to enjoy."

The new park comes as skateboarding is getting a higher profile, debuting this summer as an official Olympic sport. In Baltimore, a skatepark is scheduled to open this fall at Rash Field at the Inner Harbor.

According to estimates by the Skatepark Project, a national nonprofit, there are roughly 7,300 regular skateboarders, with another 29,000 casual skateboarders, ages 5 to 18 in Baltimore.

Advocates for the sport say it gives kids self-confidence, camaraderie and a positive, outdoor activity. But for many children in Easterwood and elsewhere around the city, the Hampden skatepark is out of reach.

"Even though it’s only 3 miles away, on the other side of Druid Hill Park, realistically it’s worlds away," said Murdock, nicknamed "the mother of skateboarding" by local skaters. Her group works to promote the construction of public skateboard parks. "We really need more public recreational activities and amenities, something that kids go and do for free."

For Easterwood, a predominantly Black neighborhood, the skateboard park would bring an amenity where there have been few. The densely populated neighborhood has no senior center, no health clinic, no grocery store, Cheatham said.

After outreach and conversations with residents, the partners decided to put the skating project at Easterwood Park, which spans several blocks along Baker and North Bentalou streets. It’s used for softball, basketball, touch football and Little League. It’s also place that has seen tragedy. Two years ago, a man hung himself in the park; children on the way to school saw the body.

Varied funding

Their skateboard effort got a big boost in 2019, when Recreation and Parks allocated $300,000 toward its construction. The department’s manager for the Easterwood project, Larissa Torres, said it is fully funded and the next step is putting it up for bids.

The roughly 9,000-square foot, polished concrete skateboard structure will be built in the park’s southeast corner, Murdock said. The park will have features for all levels. Easterwood Park itself is also slated for a face-lift, Torres notes, including a new basketball court.

Since many neighbors didn’t know what a skateboard park looked like, Recreation and Parks, Bikemore and others set up an event before the pandemic where they brought in a portable track for a trial. Cheatham said it was an instant draw.

He and Murdock have worked to bring in other funds. The Skatepark Project, champion skateboarder Tony Hawk's national foundation, has donated $5,000.

Through a GoFundMe, the development corporation raised money to buy several hundred skateboards and helmets to give out, Cheatham said.

A lifelong Easterwood resident, Cheatham is hopeful the skatepark can attract people to his beloved community, just as Hampden’s skatepark has become a gathering place.

Cheatham hopes to rev up excitement about the sport in Easterwood on the Olympics' opening day in late July. He’s going to bring food to the park and set up an oversized screen for neighbors to watch skateboarding make its debut. Two of the U.S. team members are African American, Cheatham said. And he'll give out free skateboards.

Cheatham, who had a stroke in September and is working hard to regain use of his right side, said he’s got just a few big wishes left in his life. One is that he lives to see the park open next year.