IT was late afternoon when the young skaters gathered in front of the Brooklyn Museum on Eastern Parkway. Weaving among the commuters who trudged from a nearby subway station, the skaters hurdled steps, slid along curbs and kick-flipped their boards into the air. With a few exceptions, their performances fell somewhere between outright beginner and advanced novice. But it wasn’t their ability or the lack of it that made this group notable, it was the composition: most of the skaters were black.

Long an activity favored by white kids, skateboarding has surged into mainstream culture on a wave of multimedia appeal.