Some of them had goons as security guards. The bartender, they were always white and they would bypass you. That's when we started getting carded, three pieces of I.D. They started opening more restaurants … and the more white gay men that came, the more racist it got.
Most of the activity was on Polk Street, but eventually things shifted to the Castro district. Rodney Barnette: When I first moved here, it wasn't known as the gay capital of the United States. Over 30 years later, Barnette speaks about why Black-affirming queer spaces are still needed, and what he took away from his experience operating one.īelow are lightly edited excerpts of the episode with Rodney Barnette and his daughter Sadie Barnette.Ĭorey Antonio Rose: Tell me about your first time getting adjusted to the gay community here in San Francisco. When Rodney Barnette first moved to San Francisco in 1969, he noticed that “it wasn’t all rah rah gay capital of the world.” His experiences with racism in San Francisco’s historic gay community led him to open the New Eagle Creek Saloon, the city’s first Black-owned gay bar, in 1990.
