Salisbury removed the famous Rainbow Crosswalk this week ending a fight with the local LGBTQ rights community. Delmarva Public Media's Don Rush has this look at its final moments and the clash between Mayor Randy Taylor and Councilmember Michele Gregory.
RUSH: It was Monday morning in downtown Salisbury, and the city trucks were out to eliminate the town's famous rainbow crosswalk. This is Don Rush. Only three figures were on hand to watch the beginning of the milling of the street. Mark DeLancey, who has been the executive director of PFlag, which is now Shore Pride Alliance, sat in the cold watching the equipment begin their work.
DELANCEY: Looks like today, they're finally being able to move forward on their initiative to make this happen.
RUSH: But he said he was hopeful that this was only one chapter in the story.
DELANCEY: Let's just say this is another chapter in the story for now. Even though it might be torn up, there's still reasonable proximity that there's other things that may happen after it being torn up, and then also being hopefully that we can find a way to get it repainted.
RUSH: Former Salisbury City Council member, Megan Outten, who is running for a seat on the Wicomico County Council, remembers when the crosswalk was first painted.
OUTTEN: This was something that all of our council members at the time were extremely proud of. You've heard from some other people. This means a lot to the residents of the city and beyond. We have people that come to our city just to visit, just to witness this rainbow crosswalk. It's a historic moment, honestly, for the whole state.
RUSH: What led to this day was a decision by Mayor Randy Taylor, to eliminate the crosswalk as being political in nature and replace it with some form of an artist corner. And he said the decision to begin removing the crosswalk on Monday was part of a larger renovation plan for the downtown area.
TAYLOR: It really became the issue of the schedule of the repair of the streets we're milling that whole area, and repaving, which was part of our schedule last spring.
RUSH: That Monday night, led to a fiery council meeting with many in the community, expressing disappointment at the elimination of the rainbow crosswalk, and was fueled by a posting from the former Mayor Jake Day, whose tenure saw the crosswalk come to fruition. In his response to the announcement by the mayor that the removal would began, Day responded "lot of words to say, you're just a bigot." Those words stung with Taylor responding angrily to such an accusation. Afterward, he told us:
TAYLOR: I mean, listen, for them to equate something to do with the crosswalks with me and my feelings about people in the transgender community or the homosexual community is ridiculous. I mean, it's just insane. So I'm just trying to follow the law, do the right thing, do my job as the mayor.
RUSH: The sparring partner that night on the council was Michelle Gregory, who has been a staunch supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and the rainbow crosswalk.
GREGORY: And I was mortified watching him sit there and pout and throw a temper tantrum about being called a bigot by our former mayor, which seemed to very much trigger him. I think that he is making decisions and not liking the consequences of his decisions.
RUSH: As for the mayor's hope for some form of an artist's corner, that will not come to fruition. In his announcement, Taylor said there was not enough public interest to move ahead. Council member Gregory:
GREGORY: The art community, largely responded by rejecting his offer to put art in that spot in place of this crosswalk, which tells me it's not really about the appearance of them being uniform with code and all of that. It's just about getting rid of the crosswalks.
RUSH: Taylor also said a course correction was needed with the announcement by the US Department of Transportation. It called on governors to remove rainbow crosswalks and what had called "political art" from the roadways due to safety concerns and standardized markings. So the mayor seemed to be resigned.
TAYLOR: I don't think it was taken as seriously as they probably should have. So we're just going back to a traditional crosswalk.
RUSH: So there won't be any corner, at least [in your] admission there.
TAYLOR: That's correct. That's correct.
RUSH: This is Don Rush for Delmarva Public Media.
