'Black Gold: Stories Untold' reclaims forgotten histories of Black Californians at Fort Point

SAN FRANCISCO -- At the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, where San Francisco Bay meets the Pacific, a Civil War-era military fort is being transformed into a place of remembrance, resistance, and reimagining.

"Black Gold: Stories Untold," a new immersive art exhibition opening Friday at Fort Point, unearths the overlooked stories of Black Californians from the Gold Rush through Reconstruction. The exhibition features 25 newly commissioned works by 17 artists and invites visitors to reconsider whose stories are told and how history is preserved.

"I want visitors to have a truly multi-sensory experience," said Key Jo Lee, Chief of Curatorial Affairs and Public Programs at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD). "To take in what it means to be in this space, to hear the wind, to touch the coldness of the stone... you are actually echoing history and making a new history in this place."

Fort Point, originally constructed to defend San Francisco during the Gold Rush, never saw combat. Today, it offers a powerful setting to explore stories that have long been excluded from traditional accounts.

"This is a place where we can tell the stories of Black pioneers," Lee said. "We often think of African Americans in enslavement, which is also an important component of our history, but so too is this legacy of being the adventurer."

The exhibition is the ninth site-specific installation curated by FOR-SITE, a nonprofit dedicated to exploring the relationship between art and place throughout the Bay Area. Founder and curator Cheryl Haines said the idea was born from research into the lives of Black Californians whose contributions during the mid-19th century have been largely forgotten.

"There were a lot of stories that weren't being told about people from that period of The Gold Rush, the Civil War, up until Reconstruction," Haines said. "I realized there were phenomenal people doing important things whose histories are not known to us."

Previous FOR-SITE exhibits include "Home Land Security" which transformed military structures along the Presidio and @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz.

One of the featured artists, Cheryl Derricotte, created a work in honor of Mary Ellen Pleasant, a formerly enslaved woman who became one of the wealthiest Black women in Gold Rush-era California. She built her fortune through real estate, owning boarding houses that also served as meeting places for abolitionist organizing.

"She said she set the best table," Derricotte said, standing beside a glass dinner setting she designed to reflect that legacy. "This is an homage to that elegance, an elegance people don't often associate with Black women of that time."

Pleasant later used her wealth to support John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, contributing what would today be the equivalent of more than $1 million. Despite her influence as both an entrepreneur and an abolitionist, her story remains unfamiliar to most.

The works on display include beaded portraits, video installations, sculptures, and towering structures that invoke curiosity. Artist Umar Rashid created a military-style tent inspired by frontier life and the story of Jim Beckwourth, a formerly enslaved man who became a mountaineer and explorer.

Rashid reflected on what the framing of the exhibit "Black Gold" meant to him.

"It's about what people consider valuable," Rashid said. "Value is an agreement. Black America, Black San Francisco, Black everything is always going to have value. No matter who is in office or who tries to dictate the terms of what that value is."

Surrounding Rashid's tent are scenes that portray the lives of soldiers, settlers, Native Americans, and Black adventurers. He uses a tongue-in-cheek visual style to comment on violence and survival across these groups.

The art is woven into the architecture of the fort itself.

"If you walk through these halls, you will see artwork inserted in ways that make you feel like you're there," said Haines. "Some of the individuals we're chronicling feel more alive here than they are in history books or online. You can feel their presence."

"Black Gold: Stories Untold" runs from June 6 through Nov. 2, 2025, at Fort Point. Admission is free.

For more information, visit FOR-SITE's website.