Symbol of defiance near White House inspired millions – now it’s being ripped up
Washington: In June 2020, amid ongoing protests and civic unrest following the murder of George Floyd, city officials in the US capital commissioned a giant mural on a street just a block from the White House.
The words “Black Lives Matter” were painted on the road in bright yellow; each letter 11 metres long. With Donald Trump sitting metres away in the Oval Office, demanding Washington DC do more to quash the protests, the artwork was a show of solidarity with the BLM movement. It was also an act of defiance from a city that has always had to assert itself against attempted congressional and presidential control.
Workers begin ripping up the Black Lives Matter mural located just metres from the White House in Washington.Credit: Bloomberg
For nearly five years, the mural served as a reminder of that tumultuous summer, when anger about systemic racism and police brutality combined with unrest over the COVID-19 pandemic.
But now, the same mayor who commissioned the installation is ripping it up, in an acknowledgment that the deeply Democratic city must pick its battles against a new Trump White House and Republican-controlled Congress intent on meddling in its affairs.
DC’s Mayor Muriel Bowser said the mural had inspired millions and helped the city through a difficult period. But the priority was responding to the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to federal government agencies, which have already prompted a spike in local unemployment claims.
“We have bigger fish to fry,” she said. “Our focus is on making sure our residents and our economy survives.”
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser (centre).Credit: AP
Asked what the White House had told her about the mural, she declined to go into detail but said: “I think it’s safe to say, people didn’t like it.”
Demolition workers have begun removing the mural. It had been the specific target of congressman Andrew Clyde, a Republican from Georgia, who introduced legislation that will withhold funding to the city until it removes the mural and renames the street “Liberty Plaza”.
“Black Lives Matter Plaza will no longer stain the streets of Washington DC,” he said. “America’s capital city must serve as a beacon of freedom, patriotism and safety – not wokeness, divisiveness and lawlessness.”
Names and symbols have been a preoccupation for the second Trump administration and its Republican allies. One of Trump’s first executive orders was to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and he banned a major US news agency, the Associated Press, from the Oval Office and Air Force One for refusing to use the new name. The president also renamed Denali, a mountain in Alaska, to Mount McKinley.
The Black Lives Matter mural was painted in June 2020 amid protests against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd.Credit: Kate Armstrong
On Sunday, members of Kappa Alpha Psi, a black fraternity, gathered at Black Lives Matter Plaza to sing and remember. Richard Mattox, one of their number, told local NBC television the group was not protesting and understood why the artwork was being removed.
“But we want it to be known that you can erase this, but you cannot erase our history,” he said. “This is just a setback before a serious comeback.”
The mural’s removal is far from the only change being made in Washington to appease Republicans. Last week, Trump ordered Bowser to remove the “unsightly” homeless encampments around the city, specifically those near the White House and outside the State Department’s C Street headquarters.
“If she is not capable of doing so, we will be forced to do it for her! Washington DC must become CLEAN and SAFE!” Trump posted on social media.
The city duly began clearing out the camps on Friday morning, starting with about a dozen tents near the State Department in Foggy Bottom. A timetable of future clean-ups has been posted online, with 11 more locations slated for clearing in the next three weeks.
The District of Columbia operates under the Home Rule Act, which gives Congress the power to block laws passed by the district’s council. Theoretically, Congress could also revoke home rule.
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