City workers in Washington, DC, began removing a 48-foot mural reading “Black Lives Matter” on Monday, March 10, following Republican threats to withhold the city’s federal funding unless the mayor dismantled the work.
The public artwork was unveiled in June 2020, four days after US Park Police and the National Guard teargassed Black Lives Matter demonstrators protesting the police killing of George Floyd and other Black individuals so that President Trump could pose with a bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser introduced the completed plaza in a 2021 press release as a “permanent Black Lives Matter monument.”
The mural, located on a pedestrian street along the busy 16th Street NW, was targeted in new legislation last week led by Republican US Representative Andrew Clyde from Georgia. The bill threatened to withhold millions in federal funds if Mayor Bowser did not “remove the phrase Black Lives Matter” and redesignate the area as “Liberty Plaza.”
Clyde also demanded that all mentions of the phrase “Black Lives Matter” be scrubbed from all city websites and documents.
The day after Republicans introduced the bill, Bowser posted a cryptic statement on X about what he termed the “evolution” of Black Lives Matter Plaza. Boswer said the plaza would become part of a new mural project celebrating the upcoming 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence, known as America 250. (Similarly, the National Endowment for the Arts recently updated its Grants for Arts Projects application guidelines to note that it would be prioritizing funding America 250 projects, days after the agency canceled its DEI initiatives. The stated funding priority note was removed days later without explanation.)
In 2021, Bowser said one of her proudest memories of the plaza was when Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis came to see the monument at the end of his life. “He recognized Black Lives Matter Plaza as good trouble, and we know it will remain a gathering place for reflection, planning and action, as we work toward a more perfect union,” Bowser remarked.
Bowser said on X last week that the mural had inspired millions during a “painful period,” but cautioned that possible congressional intervention could be costly, and referred to the “devastating impacts of federal job cuts” as the city’s top concern.
In a statement to Hyperallergic, the Board of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, a civil rights nonprofit that advances the mission of the broader decentralized movement, called the Republican-led charge to erase the Plaza “white supremacy masquerading as governance.”
“This isn’t just an attack on local autonomy, it’s a racially motivated attempt to erase the strides Black people have made in demanding justice,” the Board said.
A spokesperson for the city’s District Department of Transportation told local radio news station WTOP that the removal process will last from six to eight weeks, weather permitting. Hyperallergic has contacted the agency for comment.
Crews with bulldozers were seen drilling into the yellow thermoplastic paint used to spell out the iconic phrase on Monday morning.
The Board of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation said the congressional push to rid DC of the Black Lives Matter Plaza is an attempt to “trample on the will” of the city’s residents, many of whom are Black, Hispanic, or belong to other non-White demographic groups.
“Whether they whitewash our murals or march in our protests, we will not stop until we fulfill our liberation agenda,” the Board said. “DC will not be muted and we will not be erased; Black Lives Matter — yesterday, today, tomorrow, and always.”
