Community Rallies To Save St. Pete LGBTQ+, Black History Street Murals

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — Community organizers are rallying to save St. Petersburg’s street murals after the state threatened to withhold funding to municipalities across Florida over street art that’s inconsistent with state law and the Florida Department of Transportation Design Manual.

A Change.org petition is circulating in support of murals, which include the LGBTQ+ Pride crosswalk in the Grand Central District and the Black History Matters street mural in front of the Woodson Museum. The petition, which has nearly 2,200 signatures as of Thursday morning, calls for city council members to advocate for local rule.

Local LGBTQ+ leaders, the NAACP’s St. Petersburg chapter and the Woodson also hope to pack Thursday’s St. Petersburg City Council meeting with supporters of the street art as the issue is discussed by council members.

They’re encouraging supporters to rally on the front steps of St. Petersburg City Hall with banners, flags and signs at 2 p.m., ahead of the meeting. There will also be opportunities for public comments about the murals.

In a June 30 internal memo, Will Watts, FDOT’s chief operating officer and assistant secretary, called for municipalities to remove “non-compliant traffic control devices and surface markings, including pavement art installations.”

This includes “pavement surface art that is associated with social, political, or ideological messages or images and does not serve the purpose of traffic control.”

State officials claim that the removal of the street art is a safety issue.

“Non-standard surface markings, signage, and signals that do not directly contribute to traffic safety or control can lead to distractions or misunderstandings, jeopardizing both driver and pedestrian safety,” Watts wrote in the memo. “Furthermore, uniform and consistent application of pavement surface markings is critical for the overall effectiveness of automated vehicle operation, as automated vehicle technologies rely heavily on consistent traffic control devices.”

Studies, including the 2022 Asphalt Art Safety Study from Bloomberg Philanthropies, show the opposite, though.

The Asphalt Art Safety Study found that areas with street art, including intersection murals, crosswalk art, painted plazas, and sidewalk extensions, saw a 50 percent drop in traffic crashes involving pedestrians or cyclists, a 37 percent drop in crashes leading to injuries, a 27 percent increase in drivers yielding to pedestrians with the right-of-way, and a 17 percent decrease in total crashes.

“The state said they felt it (pavement art) was a distraction. Well, your feeling doesn’t count; science shows otherwise,” Brian Longstreth, an organizer who supports saving the city’s street murals, told Patch. “There are actually less accidents. Let’s deal with science and let us be St. Pete.”
Supporters of the street murals believe state leaders are actually targeting cities, including St. Petersburg, with diverse communities.

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Artist John Gascot, who worked on the original Black Lives Matter mural and the Black History Matters mural that replaced it, said the art mirrors St. Petersburg’s diverse, “underrepresented and underserved” communities.

“They’re a reflection of the community and as a community that has historically had to fight to be heard and seen, there’s an importance to that,” he told Patch.

While the city is known for its vibrant art scene, especially its public murals, the Pride crosswalk, Black History Matters and similar street art is different.

“While a picture of a flower or a marine scene are valid and beautiful, those are decorative; these are community statements,” Gascot said.

The murals are also a welcoming greeting to the many tourists who visit the area.

“(The rainbow street mural is) a symbol of welcome for a community that sometimes feels like they’re left out of traditional tourism,” Rachel Covello, CEO and publisher of OutCoast.com, told Patch. “It doesn’t mean that other people aren’t welcome. It just says, hey, you can hold hands and walk down the street.”

The murals are also representative of the city she loves.

“‘We Are St. Pete’ is the slogan that the city stands by,” she said. “That’s everyone that makes up St. Pete and a big part of that is a diverse network of LGBTQ people, Black people, brown people, trans people, queer people and, of course, straight people, and people of all backgrounds and all religions.”

If the state forces the removal of the rainbow crosswalk and Black History Matters murals, that’s making an intentional statement, Covello added.

“It’s one thing if something wasn’t there to start, but there’s a bolder statement made if something was there and then it’s taken away; that’s an erasure,” she said. “We had it, now it’s taken away from you and there’s a different feel to that.”

Longstreth is hopeful that city council members will support fighting to keep these street murals for as long as they can. He hopes the community shows up Thursday afternoon to send the message to local leaders that residents want to preserve them.

“It’s a local issue and it should be about what residents want to do and what they support,” he said. “We want to pack the meeting space and be very visible. We want to tell the state, ‘Your reasoning is faulty. Go back to Tallahassee and work on something else.’”

Gascot likens the threat to withhold funding if the murals aren’t removed to “Nazi tactics.”

“It’s disgusting, but I expected it,” he said, adding, “I feel like the current administration is … using (these tactics) that have been documented throughout history with the erasure of communities, the erasure of media. Any voice that might stand up against it is currently under attack, from the media to the schools which empower young minds to artistic expression. It’s just a very clear take off the Nazi playbook to me.”

No matter what happens at Thursday’s meeting, Longstreth vowed that these communities targeted by the ordered pavement art removal will continue to be present in the city.

“The phrase I keep using is, ‘We will not be erased,’” he said. “We’re gonna fight to keep the murals, but if we can’t keep the murals, we will not be erased. We will find other ways.”