In the predawn hours Thursday, the Florida Department of Transportation sent crews to Orlando’s Pulse nightclub memorial and quietly erased one of its most visible tributes: the rainbow crosswalk that had stretched across West Esther Street since 2017. By sunrise, the vibrant symbol of resilience had been replaced with the stark black-and-white lines of a standard crossing.
Protests over the latest effort by the DeSantis administration to erase the LBGTQ+ community began almost immediately after the repainting was discovered. Orlando residents showed up with chalk and a message for DeSantis – “We will not be erased!”
“In the middle of the night, FDOT painted over our rainbow crosswalk at the Pulse Memorial,” Florida state Rep. Anna V. Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando, posted on X. “A tragedy that we have worked so hard to find power in pain. A rainbow crosswalk that sparked joy and showed our love for all people.”
In an interview with The Advocate, Eskamani said Orlando officials had been working within FDOT protocols to preserve the rainbow crosswalk, citing its significance not only to LGBTQ+ Floridians but to the city as a whole. “We experienced a tragedy of 49, mostly LGBTQ+ people, being murdered almost 10 years ago. And so we wanted to preserve this crosswalk,” she said. “Then, apparently, in the middle of the night, FDOT painted over it, with no notice, no warning, and did not tell the city. We only found out this morning because there was no more crosswalk there. It’s so incredibly shameful. Doing it in the middle of the night emphasizes that you’re trying to hide your bigotry.”
At the site on Thursday morning, State Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith said “I cannot believe that the DeSantis administration has engaged in this hostile act against the city of Orlando, that they have insulted the families and survivors of this horrific tragedy, and that they have done this in this way,” Smith said. “Of course, they did this in the middle of the night because they knew what they were doing was wrong. I hope the City of Orlando paints these colors back onto their property and that they sue the state of Florida.”
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer issued his own blistering statement Thursday, calling the removal “a cruel political act.” “We are devastated to learn that overnight the state painted over the Pulse Memorial crosswalk on Orange Avenue,” Dyer said. “This callous action of hastily removing part of a memorial to what was at the time our nation’s largest mass shooting, without any supporting safety data, or discussion is a cruel political act.”