OaklandSide: ‘The community will be uplifted’: Oakland’s new skating rink is about more than recreation

OaklandSide, August 9, 2021, ‘The community will be uplifted’: Oakland’s new skating rink is about more than recreation

Sitting on a once-vacant lot near Eastmont Mall, the newly opened UMOJA Outdoor Roller Skating Rink at Liberation Park rings alive with the hum of quad skates and the deep bass of funk music.

Johnson believes the UMOJA rink has the potential to shine a much-needed spotlight on Eastmont, and help to jumpstart other business and cultural activities that can stem the displacement of Black people from the neighborhood. Oakland and San Francisco recently topped a list of the “most intensely gentrified” U.S. cities

 in a study conducted by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.