South Florida advocates fight back to preserve rainbow street art

Cindy Krischer Goodman, South Florida Sun Sentinel on Aug 30, 2025

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — “We Won’t Be Erased” read giant letters in front of a rainbow painted on a street near Fort Lauderdale beach that served as the site of a protest on Saturday morning.

Dozens of LGBTQ+ advocates and several state representatives rallied against a state order to remove the street designs in Fort Lauderdale, offering gratitude to city officials for fighting back. At an emergency city meeting Wednesday night, Fort Lauderdale city officials voted to fight a state order to remove a rainbow pride flag and other artsy designs painted on local streets.

“This is not about paint on the pavement,” said Alfredo Olvera, President of Dolphin Democrats, an organizer of the rally. “This is about whether we will allow hatred and fear to divide us or whether we will stand shoulder to shoulder and fight for the dignity of every human being.”

Florida is removing colorful crosswalks and street art across the state following a federal directive to eliminate “distractions” from roadways. Gov. Ron DeSantis said he supports a statewide order to repaint and warned against allowing “state roads to be commandeered for political purposes.” Many of the colorful crosswalks are rainbow symbols of pride for the LGBTQ community.

The state has identified 11 road displays in Fort Lauderdale that it wants removed, including street art of a pride flag near the beach and several colorful crossings in various parts of the city. Rally attendees on Saturday waved flags and held up signs that read “They can’t erase us” and “Crosswalks aren’t the problem. Hate is.” They emphasized that the rally is about much more than paving over street art.

“It may seem silly to some people and that it’s just a painted rainbow on the street,” said Hillary Dougherty, a Broward County mom who grew up in Wilton Manors. “But what it means to the community is you’re safe here. You’re welcome, and we care for you. ... This feels like the erasure of a community and acceptance.”

Florida Department of Transportation workers have been painting over rainbow designs and local art installations all over Florida. Among the first removed — and the most controversial — was a rainbow crosswalk commemorating the 49 people killed in the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. An FDOT crew repainted the Orlando crosswalk in the middle of the night, outraging community members

Saturday’s rally along A1A in Fort Lauderdale comes a day after Florida Department of Transportation District Secretary Steven Braun gave the city a hearing date of Sept. 15 to make its case for keeping the street art, but warns there will be no change of heart.

Delray Beach is fighting a similar state order and has been given a hearing date on Tuesday.

Some cities, including Boynton Beach and West Palm Beach, have agreed to remove their LGBTQ+ rainbow markings after getting ordered to by the state.

“This is not what we asked our elected officials to do,” said state Rep. Daryl Campbell, representing District 99, which includes a section of Fort Lauderdale. “This is not what we elected our governor to do. We are wasting taxpayers’ dollars.”

Campbell urged Floridians to hold their political leaders accountable: “Instead of focusing on the things that we need. This is a distraction from us focusing on healthcare and from us focusing on housing. Florida is in a crisis right now, a crisis of affordability, and the best that we have in our leadership in the state and in D.C. is to attack painted sidewalks and murals. Is that is that the best that we can do?”

Fort Lauderdale resident Ed French said he, too, believes political attention on crosswalks is misdirected.

“Is this what we should be focusing on — hate and division and discrimination? ” French asked. “Are they the things that matter when we have incredibly high crime rates? We had one of the worst school shootings in the country in our community, and yet the governor seems to want to focus on drag shows, and rainbows and crosswalks, and banning books. What we need is people to focus on the things that make us safer and healthier.”

State Rep. Mitch Rosenwald, whose District 98 also includes part of Fort Lauderdale, said he doesn’t see the evidence for the Department of Transportation’s actions. “There’s no compelling research, peer-reviewed research that colored crosswalks lead to unsafe streets. What we’re seeing here is a state mandate from the Florida Department of Transportation to make a community less visible, our community. This isn’t just silly. It’s serious, and actually it’s even dangerous.”

Rosenwald noted that the rainbow flag where the rally was held is on a side street with little traffic, not a crosswalk. It is one of the art designs the state wants to paint over.

“Let’s remind the state to redirect its time and money to things that actually matter, like giving Floridians a fair chance to own a house and keep that house and raising the minimum wage to a living wage. Enough of government interventions that intrude on our private lives,” he said.