San Francisco will soon unveil a memorial to the 49 people killed at Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016.
The project, which has been in the works for four years, will be based on Brazilian artist Wilson Ferreira’s designs and consist of a V-shaped shield engraved with the victims’ names, according to the San Francisco Bay Times. After its approval by the city and San Francisco County officials, the memorial will be installed on the second floor of the San Francisco LGBT Center.
The project was driven by organizers from AGUILAS after the city’s Board of Supervisors initially set aside $10,000 for a memorial to be produced in 2017. AGUILAS, which stands for Assembly United Impacting Latinxs to Surpass, was founded in 1991 and seeks to inspire pride within the Latinx LGBTQ+ community through developing programs promoting diversity, health, and community building.
The funding allotment led to a lengthy conversation within the San Francisco Latinx community “about what kind of memorial would seem appropriate,” as AGUILAS Executive Director Eduardo Morales said in an announcement published in the Bay Times. Latinx clubgoers made up the majority of victims: Of the lives lost on June 12, 2016, 90% were members of the Latinx community.
Because the funds were not earmarked for any specific organization, the money was in danger of being lost in the Public Works Department budget until AGUILAS stepped in, as Morales explained.
San Francisco city and county officials ultimately designated the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District organization to receive the $10,000 “to facilitate the process for design and execution.” The LGBT Center, which also houses AGUILAS on its fourth floor, was a natural destination for the memorial as the Castro community organization has no physical address itself.
The date for the memorial’s unveiling should be revealed by mid-September, and it could potentially coincide with Latinx Heritage Month, which lasts from September 15 to October 15.
At the time of the tragedy, Pulse was the deadliest mass shooting in United States history, with 53 wounded in addition to those murdered. Although initial reports speculated that the attack was a hate crime directed at the LGBTQ+ community, the shooter expressed rage over U.S. airstrikes in the Middle East in a 911 call, reportedly instructing an emergency operator to “tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq.”
In 2017, the shooting at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas surpassed Pulse as the country’s deadliest mass shooting on record, killing 60 people.
In the years since, the Pulse anniversary has been a day of mourning for many in the LGBTQ+ community, particularly those who are also Latinx. This past June, multiple remembrances were held in San Francisco: a moment of silence was observed during Pride festivities at Oracle Park, while a separate dedicated service was held in San Francisco’s historic Castro district, with the victims’ names each read in turn for a somber crowd.
This June also saw the site of the shooting designated as a national memorial after a resolution introduced by U.S. House Representatives Darren Soto, Val Demings, and Stephanie Murphy, all Florida Democrats, unanimously passed both Houses of Congress. Although an identical bill passed the House in 2020, it found no sponsors in the Senate and had to be reintroduced the following year.
Marco Rubio, a Republican Senator, declined to sponsor the 2020 bill but signed on as co-sponsor this year.
President Joe Biden swiftly signed the resolution into law on June 25 in a public ceremony at the White House. In his comments at the ceremony, Biden described Pulse as “a place of acceptance and joy” that in an instant “became a place of unspeakable pain and loss.”
“And we'll never fully recover, but we’ll remember,” he said. “And we have to.”
Construction on the Orlando memorial has yet to begin, but a winning design has been selected, which will serve as the basis for a future finished concept. The current design proposal includes an open-air museum, a reflecting pool, and 49 trees to honor each of the victims.
The onePulse Foundation has established 49 annual scholarships as part of its mission statement.
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