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Jacksonville bridge in rainbow lights for LGBTQIA Pride month
Citizens two years in a row lit up the roadways across the St. Johns River, despite a curious number of obstacles the state of Florida kept throwing in the way.
A bridge lighting kicked off Pride Month in Jacksonville, Florida and for the second year in a row, private citizens shined the lights when the state would. The Acosta Bridge on Sunday took on the colors of the rainbow.
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But it almost didn’t happen thanks to a suspiciously timed bridge closure the evening of the event.
Matt McAllister, the man behind last year’s lighting of the Main Street Bridge over the St. Johns River, said in most ways the event proved easier to pull off a second time around. He even recalls telling husband Andrew Burgee, a co-organizer of the lighting, the evening before the event, that he thought everything had gone so smoothly.
“That’s when I knew we needed a Plan B,” he said. “Usually, my paranoia does me no good, but this time it did.”
Related: Ron DeSantis stopped Pride lighting of bridges, so a Jacksonville man did it himself. Here's how you can too
As a point of recent history, the bridge lighting first occurred in 2024 after the Florida Department of Transportation under Gov. Ron DeSantis decided it would celebrate Florida’s “Freedom Summer” by lighting all state-managed bridges in red, white and blue from Memorial Day to Labor Day, a time span that conveniently pre-empted planned Pride demonstrations by cities around the state. That led McAllister last year to organize the citizen lighting, which drew national attention. He immediately knew the event could become an annual tradition.
Starting his planning well in advance, McAllister found an appetite to repeat the event, and announced on May 23 the event would be held on June 1. Organizers raised thousands successfully to buy new equipment, rather than relying on a benefactor the year prior. LGBTQ+ activists and allies shined twice as many rainbow-colored flashlights — 146 compared to 70 last year — and the crowd for this lighting swelled to four or five times the number in attendance in 2024.
But days ahead of the event, the Florida Department of Transportation quietly announced on a state website the Main Street Bridge would close at 9 p.m. the evening of the lighting and remain closed until the following day. The sun sets in Jacksonville around 8:20 p.m. Participants only learned about the closure from a notice to drivers on the local TV news.
McAllister discussed the event with Burgee and John Hamm, the other co-organizer. The group considered trying to relocate everyone to another bridge, but initially rejected the idea. It may make less impact, but the lighting was simply moved up at 8 p.m., and organizers promised to vacate the bridge by 9 p.m.
But the evening of the lighting, attendees began a march to the Main Street Bridge when the drawbridge started to open, despite there being no boat in sight. Organizers waited a few minutes, but then moved on to the Plan B McAllister concocted in the middle of the night.
The organizers the prior evening had decided the Acosta Bridge, located a mile away from the Main Street Bridge by foot, would be the unofficial backup site. They had secretly chalked out 146 standing spots on the bridge where flashlight holders could stand if needed.
“We only told six people in advance, our color leaders,” McAllister said, referring to those line leaders who would lead a flock of flashlight holders with respectively gel cap filters for each color of the rainbow flag.
“Every time we published a start time, something happened. We knew we had to keep this quiet.”
And so, at the word of organizers, color leaders led the flock of participants a mile away to the Acosta Bridge. It proved a serendipitous move. For one, local railway company CSX had lit its own sign on the waterfront with Pride colors, and somehow, when it reflected against the water, the image of the trans flag almost appeared to accompany the rainbow images generated by the flashlights on the bridge. One taken from shore showed both reflections side by side, while the red, white and blue lights of the Main Street Bridge faded in the distance.
Participants could also stay on the Acosta Bridge much longer without a 9 p.m. road closure to fight, and the group stayed in place until around 10 p.m. That happened to be the time the drawbridge finally closed at the Main Street Bridge.
McAllister personally refuses to adopt conspiracy theories about the constant obstacles thrown in the path of the Pride Flag protest. FDOT officials said the unexpected draw bridge lift occurred to construction workers could prepare for overnight work, a plausible explanation if a convenient one. But the organizer said he does understand, based on the constant attacks on LGBTQ+ people under DeSantis’ tenure, why many prescribe nefarious motives.
But appropriately, what McAllister feels most is a sense of, well, pride.
“It was so inspiring to see everyone literally go the extra mile for one another,” he said. “Being faced with that adversity and overcoming it in such a large and communal and theatrical fashion with the show, I’ll speak for myself, but it’s the most proud I have been at a Pride.”
