May 01, 2026 | Michail Takach

Eloise McPike: the mother of Black Milwaukee Pride

While carving a path where there was none, she became a mother to everyone who followed.

Eloise McPike

"Everybody is here for a purpose, and I now know this was my purpose."

Born in Hannibal, Missouri in 1953, Eloise was just six months old when her parents migrated north to Milwaukee in search of a better life. They settled into a cozy back house on 2nd Street, and young Eloise was enrolled at Center Street School.

It was a vibrant childhood filled with friends, family, neighbors, and all-day play. Eloise remembers staying out until the streetlights came on and never once feeling unsafe. Home life was strictly structured. Eloise grew up with seven brothers: three older and four younger. Being the only girl meant she was under the surveillance of not only her parents, but a seven-man security detail.

"My father kept a real tight rule over us," Eloise recalls with a chuckle. "Wherever I went, I had to have one of my brothers go with me. There was no venturing out alone for me.”

One afternoon, a neighborhood bully tried to steal Eloise’s trombone on her way to lessons at the Wells Street School. When her father heard about the incident, he declared that one of her brothers would now escort her to every lesson.

"He would get them up early in the morning because my practice was at nine," Eloise laughed. "They complained the whole way there! ‘We got out of bed for this?’”

Eloise and family, 1965

Eloise 1987

Eloise 1992

Finding her own beat

Fenced in by strict parents and seven brothers, Eloise didn't have much room to explore the world. But looking back, she realizes the clues were always there. In grade school, she loved playing with a particular girlfriend's hair, and she realized early on she had absolutely zero interest in boys. She simply felt different, wondering exactly where she fit into the world, assuming everything would work out eventually. She knew absolutely nothing about gay life.

Guided by social expectations, Eloise dated men and had two children -- girl and a boy born just a year apart. By the time she was 21, she was on her way to living a “normal” life as a straight woman.

That all changed when she attracted a not-so-secret admirer. A woman kept showing up at Eloise’s workplace, hanging out and chatting with her for extended periods of time.

"She just kept coming up to the station over and over," Eloise said. "I said, What are you doing here again? You don't know me.' And they said, 'I'm here to see you.'”

“I was so clueless, I said, 'For what?'" She said, “I think you know.”

Her admirer had a crush, which surprised and flattered Eloise at the same time, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Eventually, Eloise agreed to step outside her comfort zone. She and the woman began seeing each other, something Eloise considered an “experiment.” She came to realize that the woman knew who she was, before she even knew who she was herself.

“It was like the fog suddenly cleared,” Eloise said. “For the first time, I felt entirely comfortable. I could finally be herself. And I never looked back.”

Saying "I Do"

Finding her identity was one thing; finding her soulmate was another. That chapter began at one of Eloise’s famous "after-sets.” For years, she hosted late-night house parties for people who weren't ready to stop dancing when the bars closed.

Eloise was already seeing someone else at the time, but the moment Jan walked into the room, lightning struck.

"When I saw her, I said, 'Wow. I'm gonna be with her,'" Eloise laughed. “And guess what? I got my way.”

There were, of course, a few obstacles. First, Eloise had to gracefully exit her current relationship. Second, Jan was playing hard to get. But Eloise has never been one to back down from a challenge. She won Jan over, kicking off a stunning 42-year love story.

Their union has survived some serious challenges. Early on, Jan’s mother disapproved of the relationship and pressured Jan to move down south. Wanting Jan to keep the peace with her family, Eloise told her to go visit her mother. While in Mississippi, Jan was involved in a devastating car accident that nearly cost her a leg.

Eloise desperately wanted to rush to Jan's side, but she ran into a wall of workplace red tape. Her HR department refused to recognize Jan as her immediate family and would not grant her an emergency leave. Refusing to take "no" for an answer, Eloise threatened to call the Equal Employment Opportunity Office (EOP).

"They felt threatened," Eloise said. All the bureaucracy suddenly melted away, the leave was approved, and Eloise was able to bring her partner back home to Milwaukee to recover.

In 1987, the couple held a beautiful, heartfelt ceremony at an affirming local church. While that ceremony gave them a sense of spiritual meaning, the legal system took a few decades to catch up.

In 2015, marriage equality was legalized nationwide. Eloise and Jan hopped on a plane to Las Vegas to make it official. For Eloise, it wasn’t just about a piece of paper. Their earlier experience taught them that marriage equality came with guaranteed protections that civil unions would not.

"I've seen it happen too many times when a same-sex partner passes away,” said Eloise, “the family just comes in and cleans everything out. The survivor is left with nothing.”

“Jan is protected. She’s got my life insurance and my pension. That gives me some peace."

Building her own sanctuary

Eloise’s activism was borne in the separatism of the late 20th century, when Black LGBTQ folks often had limited safe spaces to be themselves.

Black-owned gay bars struggled to stay financially stable. White-owned gay bars were often unwelcome or outright hostile to Black customers. If you weren’t on your absolute best behavior, you’d be removed from the bar.

“There was no relaxing, no cutting loose, no getting wild,” said Eloise. “You knew they were watching you, just waiting for a reason to kick you out.”

One night at La Cage, a bartender cleared their empty glasses by dramatically sweeping them off the bar and directly into a trash can.

“The message was clear,” she said. “My Black friends and I just drank out of those glasses, so they were trash now. They didn’t want those glasses in the bar anymore. That’s what they thought of us!”

“And I remember thinking, we have all this prejudice against the gay community out there, and he’s got the audacity to discriminate against us in here?”

Fortunately, Eloise discovered a new Black-owned club on the North Side. Artony’s was the sanctuary she – and her entire circle of friends – desperately needed at that moment.

"My people were in there," she said. "It was all Black people. It felt so good to just BE. There was absolutely none of that petty racism. I love music, and when I first heard house music there, I just started hanging at Artony’s all the time.”

These bars weren't just businesses; they were living rooms, community centers, and shelters from a cruel world. But that sanctuary was fragile. Artony’s eventually closed, but Tina Terry took over the bar as her first of four locations for Tina’s RTI. Tina became a good friend, as well as a beloved community champion, and Eloise thought the world of her.

On July 10, 1993, Eloise was chatting with Tina about opening a jazz lounge upstairs at her final location. It was close to closing time, and Eloise stepped out to her car. Seconds later, gunfire shattered the night. Two armed robbers had stormed the building. While making their getaway, the gunmen opened fire into the parking lot. A gunman shoved Eloise to safety. If he hadn't, she would definitely have been shot.

The police arrived, but they wouldn’t let Eloise back inside.

“I kept asking, where’s Tina, where’s Tina?” said Eloise. “Nobody would answer me. And then Tina was wheeled out in a black body bag. She’d been shot and killed, for no reason at all, after begging the robbers not to hurt anyone.”

"I lost it," Eloise said. “I just lost it.”

"This Is ours:” founding Black Pride

Artony’s was gone. Tina’s was gone. Soon, Rene-Z Cozy Corner, another popular Black bar, would be gone too. New hotspots like Barbie Doll’s Playhouse and Emeralds came and went quickly.

Eloise knew that the Black LGBTQ community needed a joyful, public space to call their own, so she partnered with Charles Daniels of Charles D Productions.

"I wanted to know, 'why don't we have a Black Pride?'" Eloise said. “Other cities have a Black Pride. Why doesn’t Milwaukee?”

They called Summerfest to secure a space, but were flatly rejected by organizers who claimed it would interfere with PrideFest. Eloise took the operation to State Fair Park, who welcomed them with open arms.

As the festival producer, Eloise did it all. She coordinated food trucks, booked vendors, managed a dance tent, and secured legendary headliners like MC Lyte. It was an uphill battle from the start. Customers didn’t want to pay the $10 admission fee, and some scaled fences to sneak in. Eloise struggled to find donors and sponsors willing to support a first-time community festival. Many local Black-owned businesses refused to participate in a “gay event,” claiming religious or moral objections.

"I was shocked by the arrogance of it all. We spend money too!'" Eloise said.

Against all odds, the event was a triumph of joy, culture, and visibility. Even now, it’s a reminder to Eloise that Black Pride still matters, especially in a city well-known for its segregation and systemic racism.

"We are already excluded from a lot of things," Eloise said. "It’s nothing against any other fest. Black Pride is where we can get together and just be together. For three days, we could just be who we were without anyone looking at us with judgement. That space was ours."

Bringing the village back

Today, Eloise looks out at Milwaukee with a mixture of pride, concern, and fierce hope. While she is thrilled to learn that the city now hosts multiple Black Pride organizations, she worries about the next generation navigating economic anxiety, a shortage of Black community clubs, and an absence of civic engagement.

She calls for a return to the “chosen family” structures that strengthened her generation. In her younger years, Eloise was a “house mother” to over a dozen young people: teaching them life skills, helping them navigate challenges, finding them essential support services, and teaching them what mutual aid could and should be.

"A lot of us older ones being mentors could fix it," Eloise said. "A lot of these kids are victims of their environment, looking for love in the wrong places. If they find somebody who truly cares about their future, they’ll come around. We’ve got to bring them back in. We’ve got to find what inspires them and light that fire.”

After a lifetime of breaking barriers, Eloise looks back with simple gratitude. It’s not being a community organizer, festival creator, or mentor that she sees as her greatest achievement.

"Seriously, I’m just thankful I had the opportunity to do it all," Eloise says softly. "All these things gave me a tremendous feeling of self-worth. Everybody is here for a purpose, and I now know this was my purpose."