Location: Fort Point National Historic Site
Duration: June 6 - November 2, 2025
Hours and Dates: 10am-5pm, Fridays-Sundays
This exhibit is free and open to the public.

About Black Gold

This summer, FOR-SITE Foundation presents its highly anticipated new project Black Gold: Stories Untold. This innovative exhibition invites more than fifteen contemporary artists to reflect on the resilience, struggles, and triumphs of African Americans who lived in California from the Gold Rush to the Reconstruction period following the Civil War (c. 1849–1877). Black Gold will be presented at Fort Point National Historic Site, the only extant Civil War-era fort on the West Coast of the United States, and will be on view from June 6 to November 2, 2025.

Through a selection of recent artworks and nearly a dozen new commissions, Black Gold highlights important but little-known figures and narratives from California’s history. Works in the exhibition explore the presence of slavery and the struggle for legal rights within this “free” state, the successes of Black entrepreneurs, and the experiences of African American Army regiments known as the Buffalo Soldiers. More broadly, the exhibition illuminates the role that Black communities played in the cultural, social, and political environs of the time. Artists include Akea Brionne, Demetri Broxton, Adrian L. Burrell, Adam Davis, Cheryl Derricotte, Carla Edwards, Mildred Howard, Sir Isaac Julien CBE, Tiff Massey, Umar Rashid, Trina M. Robinson, Alison Saar, Yinka Shonibare CBE, Bryan Keith Thomas, Cosmo Whyte, Hank Willis Thomas, and the artists of Creativity Explored.

“Black Gold is a collaborative effort that brings together the work of an array of artists, thinkers, and community leaders to reveal narratives that are historically significant and continue to resonate today,” said Cheryl Haines, FOR-SITE’s Founding Executive Director & Chief Curator. “I am thrilled to shed light on this important part of California’s story.” Black Gold was inspired in part by Gold Chains: The Hidden History of Slavery in California, a public education campaign produced by the ACLU of Northern California, one of FOR-SITE’s community partners.

Highlights include:

• San Francisco artist Trina M. Robinson’s newly commissioned 16mm film, which tells the story of Brigadier General Charles Young (1864–1922), who was born enslaved and went on to lead a company of Buffalo Soldiers in San Francisco’s Presidio before becoming the first Black U.S. National Park Superintendent
• British artist Yinka Shonibare’s large-scale sculptural installation Man Moving Up (2022), which embodies the struggle for economic and social ascent encountered by Black Americans migrating from the rural South to the North, following the Civil War and during the Great Migration
• Oakland artist Demetri Broxton’s dazzling beaded portraits celebrating Black whaling ship captain and Bay Area civic leader William T. Shorey (1859–1919) and his family, which are embellished with cowrey shells of a type once used for protection by the Yoruba people of Nigeria and for the purchase of humans during the Transatlantic Slave Trade; and the work of interdisciplinary
• Tulsa-based artist Adam Davis, who will create new tintype portraits during the run of the exhibition, linking past and present through an early photographic format popular among Civil War soldiers.

To encourage dialogue about the exhibition’s multilayered themes, Black Gold will provide a team of docents positioned throughout the venue to offer background on the artworks and the history of Fort Point. 

Art in Conversation with an Historic Site

A former military fortification located beneath the south anchorage of the Golden Gate Bridge, Fort Point National Historic Site was constructed to protect San Francisco’s harbor from potential naval threats as the region became rich with the discovery of gold. The fort was completed in 1859, but never saw active military engagement. Today, it is an important location within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is managed by the National Park Service. Black Gold will activate this historic site through contemporary art, connecting the resonances of the past to critical issues of our present. 

“Fort Point, like all national park sites, holds a rich cultural and historical legacy—one that goes beyond well-known stories to uncover deeper, often untold chapters of our shared past,” said Chris Lehnertz, CEO of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. “We’re proud to partner in bringing Black Gold to life. National parks are places where everyone can feel welcome and connected, and this exhibition is a powerful way to ensure more people see their history, contributions, and perseverance reflected in these iconic spaces.”

The exhibition marks the sixth collaboration between FOR-SITE, the National Park Service, and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, a partnership that has resulted in new models of park visitor engagement through site-specific art presented on public land.

To learn more about Black Gold: Stories Untold, visit for-site.org.