In the early 1970s, kids didn’t have cell phones, video games, or YouTube to keep them entertained. Instead, they played hopscotch on sidewalks, tossed a football on their lawns, or spilled onto city streets to play stickball—a variation on baseball, played with a bouncy rubber ball and broom handle. But the sound of one game enticed kids outside like no other: the TAP, TAP, TAP of jump ropes hitting the pavement in a game of double Dutch. The activity was especially popular among Black girls.
Double Dutch requires two players to hold the end of a rope in each hand and swing the ropes inward one after the other in an eggbeater fashion. Then a third person leaps into the whirling ropes, jumping in the center for as long as possible. The rope turners often chant a rhyme to the beat of the jumper, like “Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around. Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground.”
David Walker had seen this game played countless times in Harlem, the New York City neighborhood where he grew up and worked. But in 1973, after spotting a group of young Black girls playing double Dutch there, inspiration struck. As a community affairs officer with the city’s police department, Walker had been looking for ways to get local girls involved with fitness activities. He realized that double Dutch could become a competitive sport.