Local artist Shaun Thurston stands before the mural he painted in Five Points to honor the neighborhood’s LGBTQ+ history. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on September 3, 2026 at 2:04 pm
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Twenty-one faces glow like golden orbs in a new mural at the Lomax Street corner of the Five Points neighborhood in Jacksonville. The human figures are framed in Christmas-like pinpoints of lights among a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes.
The signature of local artist Shaun Thurston hangs in a corner.
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The mural, called “Constellations of Us,” depicts glowing couples of all genders, drawn from people Thurston met while painting the mural to commemorate Five Points’ past, celebrate its diversity and affirm its LGBTQ+ community.
“I feel great. I see a lot of smiles and laughs coming from everybody, so it’s all positive and that is a continuation of what it’s been like on the street painting the thing,” Thurston said Thursday after the 1,700-square-foot mural was dedicated.
The mural is partly a reaction to an order from the Florida Department of Transportation a year ago to remove rainbow-painted crosswalks — or any messages or images on crosswalks or pavement — to make “roads safer and easier to navigate.”
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The city of Jacksonville had to paint over the crosswalks, as well as an intersection mural in San Marco, the jaguar paw prints down East Bay Street and others. But critics here and across the state interpreted the mandate as an attack on the LGBTQ+ community.
Now the mural can help heal the community, said Cheryl Croft, president of the Five Points Association.
“We have always been known as a very welcoming space. We really value the diversity, creativity and individualism of people, and that has been reflected in the cultural environment here,” Croft said. “With the erasure of our crosswalks, we mourned and we needed something to heal us from that, and I think we have a marvelous mural now to help heal that hole in our hearts.”
The Lomax Street mural stretches east along one building’s wall, part of it punctured by six windows and two doorways, the latter painted as part of the project. The western part of the mural also sits between two crosswalks once painted with rainbow colors until FDOT ordered them removed.
The Jax LGBT Chamber‘s members began seeking painters and artists as it planned to counter removal of the rainbow crosswalks. That resulted in a community task force working on a campaign to beautify Five Points, called “We Will Not Be Erased.”
Its first project is this mural, funded by the JAX LGBT Chamber of Commerce, Riverside Avondale Preservation, Equality Florida, JASMYN, AIDS Memorial Project of Northeast Florida, Jax River City Pride, the Robert Ragland Foundation, and Preston Haskell, among others.
A ‘transformational’ mural
At the unveiling, City Council member Jimmy Peluso said he never thought there would any issue with the rainbow crosswalks, which were in his district. He said they were done to recognize “the lives that have been lost, and who fought for equality and for a normal quality of life.”
“Then our governor decided that he was offended — offended by color, it seems, claims that painting our crosswalks was a danger to pedestrians despite every expert in transportation saying otherwise,” he said. “We luckily have Shaun, who was more than willing to take down another amazing piece of art and put up this transformational piece that I believe speaks to everyone in the city of Jacksonville.”
This mural is “significant,” added Equality Florida Development Leader Mason Manion, who called it a perfect example of what makes the LGBTQ+ community special.
“It always finds a way to creatively, stunningly, and also with a touch of humor, clap back at the people who want to erase us,” Manion said. “You don’t like the crosswalks over there? Well guess what? … Our community is still here; we still come together; we are still resilient. And as the name of this campaign said, we will not be erased.”
Thurston began his work July 25, after local paint company Paint Maven cleaned and primed the exterior wall. He worked on the mural for 20 days, often gathering an audience and “pulling people from the actual fabric of the neighborhood” to base some of his artwork on.
“I knew the response to the crosswalk rainbows being covered was the beginning. If you are going to cover up the rainbows that make people feel seen, I will just do bigger rainbows ,” Thurston said. “We did a year of planning and I still kept the sketches loose. I wanted to react to the street.”
Thurston is a Jacksonville native who has painted murals throughout the city, including EverBank Stadium, Cummer Museum of Arts & Gardens and the Museum of Contemporary Art.
