Tampa Officials Join Bautista, O'Neil On Love Walk For Equality

TAMPA, FL — While protesters rallied against police brutality in south Tampa on Saturday, resulting in one arrest, WWE superstar Titus O'Neil and actor Dave Bautista were focused on peace and solidarity in east Tampa.

The Tampa celebrity residents led a Love Walk to promote racial equality and justice, crossing a bridge over the Hillsborough River named in honor of a former slave.

"We want to turn love into action," said O'Neil, who real name is Thaddeus Bullard. "In light of recent events and the history of our country, we want to try to bring the community together."

"We want to celebrate love, community, diversity and change," added Bautista, WWE Hall of Famer and "Guardians of the Galaxy" star.

They were joined by hundreds of Tampa residents along with Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan.

Hosted by Bullard's nonprofit group, the Bullard Family Foundation, the walk began in Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park. It crossed the Madame Fortune Taylor Bridge, named for a onetime slave who, along with her husband, Benjamin, were brought to Florida from South Carolina in the 1850s by the family that owned them. After being freed following the Civil War, Fortune and Benjamin Taylor were among the first African American couples to legally marry.

Four years later, in 1868, they claimed a 33-acre homestead on the east side of the Hillsborough River in Tampa, where they grew oranges, guavas and peaches, according to the Tampa Bay History Center.

After Benjamin's death in 1869, Fortune was granted the homestead to the property on July 1, 1875, at a time when it was unprecedented for a Black woman to own property. She went on to remarry and become a successful businesswoman.

The Love Walk ended at another appropriate site, Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park, a park named for a later historic figure in Tampa's civil rights movement.

On Feb. 29, 1960, Black students across the country held sit-ins to protest segregated lunch counters, including one at the Tampa Woolworth store at 801 N. Franklin St. in downtown Tampa. While the students were harassed by police and Ku Klux Klan members in other states, then-Tampa Mayor Julian B. Lane stepped in to ensure that the Tampa sit-in remained peaceful. As the students marched to the nearby downtown W.T. Grant store, Lane sent police to protect them.

It's people such as Taylor and Lane who paved the way for the city's eventual desegregation, said O'Neil, dressed in a T-shirt bearing the images of two more Black civil rights activists, Malcolm X and Muhammed Ali. (This month, O'Neil was named a finalist for the 2020 Muhammed Ali Sports Humanitarian Award for his work with disadvantaged families.)

However, O'Neil said, it's going to take people of all races to come to the table before America achieves true equality.

"Everybody needs to stand up and face this even if it's uncomfortable," O'Neil said. "Until we start putting it all on the table and discussing it — and I'm talking about everybody whether it affects you directly or not — it's never going to change. We cannot afford to let things like this keep happening. Black person, white person, whatever, we're all human."

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