Gaye Magazine
Sep 9
3 mins read
The brightly painted crosswalk –located in the heart of Midtown, where Atlanta Pride and Black Pride celebrations pulse each year is protected because it is city-owned in taxpayer-funded.
The assurance comes as other cities, particularly in Florida have been forced to remove rainbow crosswalks after federal officials claimed they violate roadway safety guidelines. In July, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy launched a campaign declaring, “Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork.”
Soon after, Florida officials ordered the overnight removal of a rainbow crosswalk outside Pulse Nightclub, the site of the 2016 mass shooting where 49 people, most of them young, queer and Latinx, were killed. The removal sparked outrage amongst survivors, activist, and community members who viewed the crosswalk as a sacred marker of grief, resilience, and queer presence.
Atlanta city officials have said that its rainbow intersection is safe because the streets are locally owned and not tied to federal funding.
While Atlantans may worry about the state of our own rainbow crosswalk, located at the intersection of 10th Street and Piedmont Avenue, Michael Smith, the press secretary for the Mayor Andre Dickens’ Office, said that the directive should not impact the crosswalk.
“It is our understanding that the directive in question implicates effects on Federal or State-funded projects. Atlanta’s iconic Rainbow Crosswalk was paid for out of the City’s General Fund by Atlanta taxpayers.”
This is not the first time rainbow-painted intersections have been challenged. In 2019, during the first Trump administration, the Federal Highway Administration cited safety concerns, discouraging cities from painting crosswalks and nontraditional designs. The agency’s stance has been in place since 2011, though enforcement has varied.
Atlanta’s statement arrived just days before Atlanta Black Pride weekend, one of the largest Black LGBTQ+ gatherings in the world. The timing feels less like coincidence and more like testimony –a reminder that queer visibility in public space is not ornamental but essential.
The federal government frames the issue as one of safety: colorful crosswalks, it argues, could confuse drivers or pedestrians. Yet for many, this is less about safety and more about erasure. Symbols do matter. Crosswalks are where people meet the pavement, with memory collides with movement, where a city tells its people what is worth protecting.
The removal of Orlando’s Pulse crosswalk illustrates this tension clearly. A site of tragedy transformed into a living memorial was stripped in the dark of night. What message does that send to the families of those killed? To queer and trans youth who already navigate a world littered with hostility?
Atlanta’s stance is not just bureaucratic technicality; it’s a declaration. By affirming that the rainbow intersection is funded by local taxpayers, city leaders are saying that this crosswalk belongs to the people who walk it, drive past it, dance over it during Sunday fun days, and pride parades. It is both civic infrastructure and sacred ground.
Atlanta has long styled itself as a “Black Mecca” and a queer refuge in the South. The intersection at 10th and Piedmont sits at the crossroads of those identities. Protecting the rainbow crosswalk here is more than paint –is the covenant with the communities that built Atlanta into a city of possibility.
In a time when queer and trans lives are under legislative siege –from bands on gender-affirming care to “Don’t Say Gay” laws in school –even a crosswalk becomes contested terrain. Some will argue that these are just colors on asphalt. But for those of us who know what it means to live under the weight of invisibility, the colors are lifelines. They proclaim, you are seen, you belong, your grief and your joy will not be paved over.
That is why Atlanta’s assurance matters. Amid a climate of rollback and repression, a rainbow crosswalk endures in the heart of the South. And endurance, for queer people –especially Black queer people has always been both and act of resistance and prayer for the future.
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