Checkers Is the Heart and Soul of This Neighborhood | Short Film Showcase

[Music] Not only do you enjoy the camaraderie of it, but you make longtime friendships. We know the family, we know their friends, we know what they do and how they travel in life. When people are sick, we go by and check on them. When people go to jail, we check on it.

[Music] W oh boy, that's good to know how to play, ters bro. This place is absolutely necessary for our life situation and carry on the traditions that brought us through the rough [Music] times.

I'm T Roberts, and I came to DC in 1953. I've been playing checkers all of my life. At 89 years old, I hated everything in life. I hated school, I hated everybody. I couldn't read, I couldn't write. But when I got on the checkerboard, I could see that if I moved here and moved here, I'd get an advantage on it. When I learned how to play checkers, I learned how to communicate.

So I went from a dud to a halfway decent person, and so checkers changed my life. Anybody playing this game, it will change their life also. And checkers brings about a camaraderie that you will never find anywhere in life again.

[Music] [Applause]

Dancing to the music, dancing to the beat. The way you move around, you knock me off my feet. Please, my name is CEST Brothers. Call me Hard Rock ‘cause I'm the hardest chucker player that you can ever meet. I'm Robert Mack; I'm the Z Man. From coast to coast, they know the F; the Z Man is what they call it.

Mr. McK's name is Donald Cunningham, better known as the Pressure Man. I do not have a nickname yet. I like to think that I'm waiting until I get good enough, that way it's actually a good nickname. It doesn't become just an insult or something like that. He is a friend of mine, but on the board, he wants to beat me.

B and, of course, he gets luck every now and then. We got some pretty good checker players here. Then we got some hams. I lost one game today, and the only reason I lost it is 'cause I felt sorry for him. I could have just been undefeated.

And the hams want to say they good, but a ham is just a ham. You know, sometimes you have to call 911 ‘cause that's when things be heating up, man. You know, you know you cook it, eat it, and let it go, and that's the way, that's the whole show.

Yeah, he really be himself. He told me I think I joined this club maybe about 15 years ago. I've been in the checker club for, I don't know, 20 years. You know, I've definitely learned a lot over the last year. When I first came in, there was no way I was going to win a game.

And now, if it's a good day, then yeah, I can win sometimes. And if it's a bad day, you know, I'll get laughed out of here. But I’d never found a community like this around a specific game. And so I've really enjoyed not just the game, but the people who come together to play it.

It's also a community that I think should be prioritized; that we keep these institutions alive in a DC, in a city that's rapidly kind of gentrifying and becoming much richer, that we don't lose out on all the kind of historical and cultural heritage that we've built.

Not only is gentrification coming in, but modernization is coming in, and unless there’s a dramatic change at some point in time, there will not be a checker club in Washington DC. So it is ultimately primarily important that we keep this game going and we keep our place right here in the nation's capital, such that we can carry on the tradition that has taken us throughout life.

Yeah, just sing it for the… Well listen, this song is a spirit of the moment thing. Now, the one song that comes into my mind is the old smokey, “On top of old smokey, all covered with snow.” I left my heart in… toor. Nobody wants to hear that song.

S and you sing it when you beat someone back. Yeah, I sing it and I ring the bell. You see that bell over there? That's the bell that we ring on it.

I use the checker with manual dexterity like a surgeon uses his scalpel. I do magical things on the checkerboard, you see. Yeah, I got a nickname; my nickname is the Razer.

[Music]