PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. — Many of the gymnasts with Prince George's Sports and Learning Complex have been doing the sport for the majority of their childhood.
"I want to keep doing gymnastics for as long as I can," said nine-year-old Karsyn. Karsyn started gymnastics classes when she was only two.
As part of the competition team, these athletes practice at least 20 hours a week at the complex in Landover, Maryland.
“This is my first time being around people and training with people that look like me which is absolutely phenomenal," said 18-year-old gymnast, Amir Muhammad.
"My entire life I’ve been like token coming into meets and everything. I don’t see a lot of brown boys, people that look like me in there," added Muhammad.
"I love when our kids go walk into a meet, they have an African-American coach and it’s an all African-American team on the floor, everybody kind of looks at us and goes…what," said the head coach of the boy's team, Robert Lundy.
Marilyn Davies with the booster club believes the cost is one of the reasons families of color have not been as involved in the sport.
"Gymnastics in general is expensive. The [leotards] are probably around 4-500 dollars easily," said Davies. She also mentioned the fact you have to pay for transportation, hotel, food, etc whenever there is a meeting.
Gymnastics continues to evolve. Right now, some of the most well-known faces of gymnastics are brown.
"I like this change because especially with Fisk gymnastics coming in and the first black team it’s inspiring to me and the younger ones who see themselves in college gymnastics because when I was growing up it wasn’t a lot of African Americans making it up there," said 17-year-old gymnast Skyy Henson.
Fisk University made history last month by becoming the first HBCU gymnastics team to compete at the NCAA level.
The history-making team is providing inspiration for gymnasts across the country, and here in Landover, Maryland working toward that goal, and also showing them the color of their skin will never stand in their way.
“It’s as simple as just loving yourself, loving your skin you have the beautiful skin you look great, and don’t let anybody tell you anything differently,” said Muhammad.