SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — You can trace the heart of the low-riding culture of San Diego's Black community to Skyline Drive in Southeast San Diego.
"Behind the wheel of a lowrider, there is nothing like it," Art Allison said.
Hurallison is the president of the Kingdom Rider Car Club, a predominately Black car group.
For Allison and his club members, low riding is a passion.
"Ain't nothing like when your car is bucking and bouncing up and down the street or on the highway," he said.
Many people associate lowrider culture with just the Chicano culture, but the Kingdom Lowrider says that’s incorrect.
"We bring the soul. You know what I mean?" Donnie Taylor said.
"It started in the early 50s when brothers were just lowering their cars. They used to call it the 'Daygo' dip," Mark Forte said. “In the early 60s, that’s when they started putting hydraulics — aircraft hydraulics here into the cars— right here in southeast San Diego.”
Forte has been low riding for decades. It’s something he never thought would become mainstream. He it’s created a community.
"They didn’t have shops, so a lot of the original low riders— the ones before me. They did a lot of the stuff themselves," said Forte.
That community continues to this day.
Lowrider car clubs host local events to help boost community morale. Original lowriders work to help educate and change the negative stereotype they began to face in the 90s when cruising was banned.
"It’s important to participate and support," said Taylor.
The low riders say when they are behind the wheel, there is no ethnicity or race. It’s all one culture.
"It’s from here to across the seas to the highest mountain to the deepest seas," said Hurallison. "It ain’t no color lines to lowriding."
That’s the message the group of lowriders wants the future to keep alive, and that’s what one of their youngest members hopes to do.
“The history that I’ve been hearing, with these guys that have been limited. I want to take that energy and bring it to myself and bring forth new ideas and new ways of lowriding," said.
