A small group of community members gathered at Orlando City Hall Sunday afternoon for a peaceful “fight for visibility” in protest of the state Department of Transportation’s recent decision to repaint a rainbow crosswalk outside of Orlando’s notorious Pulse nightclub.
“They can ban our art. They can wash away our chalk. They can try to silence our voices. But we are not going anywhere,” wrote GLSEN Central Florida, the group that organized the peaceful gathering, in an Instagram post. “This is more than chalk — it’s about our freedom of speech. It’s about the right to exist, to be loud, to be queer, to be seen. Every attempt to erase us is an attack on all of us.”
The rainbow crosswalk outside Pulse, a former gay nightclub just a couple of miles south of City Hall, for years served as a tribute to victims of a 2016 mass shooting at Pulse that killed 49. Initially approved by FDOT in 2017, the crosswalk was one of several colorful art-pieces targeted by the state for removal in recent months, in response to a new department policy that dictates roadways “are not utilized for social, political, or ideological interests.” The directive, implemented unilaterally by the state agency, was shortly after replicated by U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a federal official appointed by President Donald Trump.
Advocates with GLSEN, a local chapter of an organization that advocates for equal rights for LGBTQ+ students in schools, wrote colorful messages of hope and resiliency in chalk outside of City Hall this weekend as part of their peaceful act of resistance to the state’s controversial paint job. Children and adults alike participated, contributing messages such as “Bring the rainbow back” and “We won’t be erased.”
