Jacksonville LGBTQ+ Community Rallies for Equality During Annual Pride March Across Acosta and Main Street Bridges

Jacksonville's LGBTQ+ community and their allies gathered to make a statement this Pride Month, with events taking place at the city's prominent Acosta and Main Street bridges. Highlighting the fifth consecutive year of this tradition, hundreds of participants marched across the Acosta Bridge in a vibrant demonstration of visibility and protest against the Florida Department of Transportation's (FDOT) lighting policy.

The initial march began back in 2021 as a reaction to FDOT's directive that demanded the Jacksonville Transportation Authority to switch off the rainbow lights on the Acosta Bridge, deeming them "out of compliance". Although the decision was to quickly reverse, the bridge remained unlit last year due to the FDOT's "Summer of Freedom" initiative, as reported by News4Jax.

Seeking to be treated with equality, activists like Don Tanner who attended the gatherings said, "The most important thing to us is simply to be treated equal to others," in a statement obtained by Action News Jax. Amy Glassman, the organizer for the Acosta Bridge Pride March, asserted with defiance that "Lights or no lights there will always be rainbows on the Acosta bridge in June at this event."

The solidarity was further extended to the Main Street Bridge where participants lined up to shine their rainbow-colored lights toward Friendship Fountain during the "Pride in our Freedoms - Community Bridge Lighting." This newer event, which started last year, was organized to celebrate freedom and assert the community's presence. Indeed, to be seen, to celebrate, and to protest were the driving motives behind these events, as Erica d'Amour conveyed, "The community came together and we decided we're going to walk over the bridge, not to be disruptive, to show that we exist and that we deserve these, and then we’ve continued up the trend since then," in a statement to News4Jax.

While the FDOT's policy this year is to keep state-owned bridges lit in red, white, and blue nearly every day of the year, the LGBTQ+ community of Jacksonville is determined to not let their voices go unheard or their lights be dimmed. As noted by First Coast News.