Sadie Barnette: Eagle Creek Saloon
Author: Ciara Ennis, Rebecca McGrew (Editors)
Publisher: Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College/Pitzer College
Year: 2021
Pages: 88
ISBN: 978-0997930658
Oakland-based artist Sadie Barnette’s The New Eagle Creek Saloon (2019) is an installation and performance series that reimagines San Francisco’s first Black-owned gay bar, opened by the artist’s father, Rodney Barnette, in 1990. Originally located at 1884 Market Street, The New Eagle Creek Saloon served as a safe gathering space for the multiracial queer community marginalized by the city’s queer nightlife scene at the time.
The installation honors the legacy of a bar that created opportunities for connection, supported activist groups, honored Black heroes, and participated in vigils for those lost to AIDS. While the original bar closed in 1993, Barnette’s installation acts as a site of celebration and resistance, embodied by the slogan, “A friendly place, with a funky bass, for every race.”
