Why America’s skateboarders are riding for Tyre Nichols

A warm orange glow surrounds a then-17-year-old Tyre Nichols as he glides on a ramp. On his skateboard, he floats across smooth concrete, jumps on a box and slides on a flat rail. In another clip, he stumbles on a concrete bar while performing a trick, then picks himself up and tries it again.

He appears airless as a camera follows him cruising on his board and rolling across wide pavement. For one brief moment, he looks as if he is suspended in air, flipping on his board as he jumps a set of stairs in slow motion.

A one-minute and 44-second montage of Nichols on his skateboard has been shared thousands of times following the publication of brutal footage of a group of Memphis Police Department officers fatally beating him in early January. Nichols, 29, died three days later, on 10 January.

As his friends and family mourn, and as the nation recovers from the shock of another act of violence against a Black American by police officers, his skateboarding videos have taken on a new life, capturing a joy and expression that resonates with skateboarding communities across the US.

“His videos are playing everywhere,” Jermone Neal, an avid skateboarder and one of Nichols’ childhood friends, told The Independent. “Tony Hawk shared his video. Stevie Williams shared his video, bro. If Tyre is seeing that, bro, he’s going crazy. Seeing his idols watching his video? He would be screaming right now. I’m so glad we have them.”

Stevie Williams, regarded as one of the most influential skateboarders of all time, shared skateboarding footage of Nichols on his Instagram with the news of his death. The definitive skateboard magazine Thrasher published a brief obituary, remembering Nichols as a “as a joyful person not afraid to be himself.” Skateboarding pioneer Tony Hawk contributed $1,000 to his family’s memorial fund, which has raised more than $1.3m; his mother RowVaughn Wells said the money will support construction of a memorial skatepark, “in honor of his love for skating and sunset.”

On 4 February, skateboarders across the country will ride in his honour.

In Memphis, skateboarders will ride from the National Civil Rights Museum. In Sacramento, California, a local skate shop will host a memorial skate session.

The rides will “celebrate his spirit, life and love,” Mr Williams wrote. “The entire world is angry and they have every right to be. We are not asking people not to protest, however, we want to make sure that Tyre’s life is remembered for what it was, not for how it tragically ended.”

A ‘musical encyclopedia’ and a ‘scientist’

Nichols, the father of a four-year-old son, counted Sacramento and Memphis among the skateboarding communities where he forged his friendships, developed his love for film and inspired others to push themselves on their board. He began skating as a young boy and continued to ride up until his death.

His death has hit skateboarding communities, particularly among Black skateboarders, especially hard; skateparks have turned into places of mourning for the tight-knit but welcoming groups whose passion is built on trust in their ability to pull off the impossible, and who view urban landscapes for their endless possibilities despite police harassment towards a sport and lifestyle seen as a nuisance to polite society.

Jerome Neal met Nichols at a Sacramento skate park around 2009 – bonding over camera equipment, unwinding with McDonald’s sweet tea, goofing on MySpace, and “feeding off each other’s energy, making skate videos and giving each other ideas,” he told The Independent.

“We were in the golden era of skateboarding – watching skate videos, getting super hyped and being super stoked to just skate at the skatepark, and just kind of vibing,” he said.

Mr Neal, who has been skateboarding for 15 years, said Nichols was a “musical encyclopedia.”

“This guy knew all genres of music. He loved it all. He listened to anything, anytime of the day,” he told The Independent. “He could be listening to opera, he could be listening to some country, he could listen to some rap, he could listen to some screamo – all in the same playlist, bro. My guy was full spectrum, all over.”

Christopher Dean, the owner of Sac Ramp Skate Shop in Sacramento, remembers Nichols for his wide smile and support for younger skaters who needed help with their tricks. Nichols was knowing for welcomeing younger skaters to the park and into his circle.

“That’s indicative of the skate community, period,” Mr Dean told The Independent.

As a skateboarder, Nichols was technically proficient and spent hours at the park pushing himself to get better, but he made it all look effortless, blasting music on his headphones and smiling the whole time.

“He was and is 100 per cent skateboarder,” Mr Dean said. “He was very proficient. You do not get to a place where you’re ollying 10 stairs. You don’t just kickflip down a 10-stair. … The stuff he did was technical and at a high level.”

Austin Robert, who filmed the now-viral footage of Nichols on his skateboard when they were younger, told NPR that Nichols “always tried to bring everybody together and put a smile on anybody else’s face before his own.”

Nichols was a “scientist” when it came to learning new tricks, a dedicated skater who “never wanted to quit,” he said.

A skateboarding community in Sacramento, seen as the “younger brother” to San Francisco’s renowned scene, Mr Dean said, has “grown exponentially, as far as the culture and vibe” in recent years.

On 4 February, Mr Dean’s shop will host a lineup of speakers, performances, demonstrations from professional and amateur skateboarders, and a video montage celebrating Nichols’ life.

“Regardless of background and regardless of skill level, if you’re on a skateboard and trying, you will receive the same kudos,” Mr Dean said. “[Skateboarders] get the applause and affirmation when they themselves make any mark in their progression ... That’s how everyone supports one another.”

‘Keep pushing for Tyre’

Photographs of Nichols on his skateboard surrounded a heart-shaped candle arrangement at a vigil inside Sacramento’s Regency Community Skate Park on 30 January. A few days earlier, the night before the release of police footage of his beating, skateboarders filled Tobey Skatepark in Memphis with flowers, candles and signs demanding “justice for Tyre”.

“Some people really keep to themselves when skating,” Luke Sexton, a Memphis skateboarder who helped organise the memorial ride for Nichols, told The Independent. “He was definitely one of those who would conversate with you.”

Mr Neal saw Nichols for the first time in five years in Memphis last October. It would be the last time they saw each other.

“We had a five-year gap, but he was the same happy dude, listening to the same silly-ass music,” he said, laughing. “His full-spectrum music.”

They skated around Memphis, “and it was just like the old times, like we never missed a beat.”

“The way he laughed is still exactly the same,” he said.

Nichols rolled his ankle while riding that day but he was “smiling the whole time,” Mr Neal said. “He couldn’t walk, but he was just still so joyful, bro.”

The funeral programe for Nichols said that he “loved skateboarding, watching the sunset, photography and most of all helping people”.

“He had the most infectious smile,” it said.

It prominently features a quote from his photography website: “My vision is to bring my viewers deep into what I am seeing through my eye and out through my lens.”

“You want to help so bad … But nothing brings Tyre back,” Mr Neal told The Independent. “Tyre was one of the most motivating dudes I knew. Extremely motivating. He could get you to do anything. But this is like the opposite. I don’t want to do my normal things. I feel off.”

“One of the things that the Memphis community is so upset about … is they never really got a chance to know Tyre,” Mr Sexton told The Independent.

“If you are 29 years old, you go through those certain stages – you start skating as a kid, you turn 16, either you’re thrilled because you can now drive to new spots, or you just stopped skating … Then you get a little bit more into adult life,” he said. “And if you’re still skating five years into adult life, I don’t think a lot of people understand the passion of that.”

In Memphis, where Nichols moved in 2020, Nichols’ family asked skateboarders to rally outside City Hall while the family privately reviewed footage of his fatal beating.

“It was his mother’s wishes that the Memphis community would … be standing out front when they had to go see the footage. And so I got anybody together I could,” said Mr Sexton, who owned the now-closed Memphis skate shop VHS Memphis.

At a skatepark vigil in Memphis, Nichols’ mother RowVaughn Wells asked skateboarders “to protest in peace.”

“I don’t want the burning of our city,” she said. “That’s not what my son stood for. And if you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully.”

“We could imagine the pain his mom was feeling, and for her to ask that of the skate community, we just felt at that point, we needed to spearhead getting everybody behind it,” Mr Sexton told The Independent. “We really wanted to ride for his mom and just show everybody skating … We’re trying to do a few things among all this to really paint a beautiful picture of community for his mother.”

On 4 February, Memphis skateboarders will ride from the National Civil Rights Museum towards the Martin Luther King Jr monument, along BB King Boulevard and up to Court Square Park for a memorial.

“We’re just really encouraging the community to celebrate his life,” Mr Sexton said. “I think we’ve done this more to show his mother and family support and love. She really wants Tyre’s legacy to be a skater.”

A flier for Memphis skate memorial has been shared widely on social media, inviting the world to skate and “keep pushing for Tyre.”

“I’m just really hoping it encourages a lot of communities, if they are not reaching out with each other and trying to really get to know everybody and do things together, that this pushes them to do it,” Mr Sexton said. “His murder was such an ugly thing, that if someone looks up his name, in 10 or 20 years, they have to dig to find that part of it and get to see all the beautiful things people did in his honor.”