A controversial Black Lives Matter protest mural in Washington, DC, erected in a tense moment between president Donald Trump and Washington, D.C.’s Democratic mayor Muriel Bowser after the police murder of George Floyd in June 2020, is being demolished. Republicans threatened to withhold millions in federal funding if the mural was not removed and the site renamed. Bowser had dubbed the intersection of 16th Street and I Street “Black Lives Matter Plaza.”
The mural, which rendered the slogan in 35-foot-tall letters, was created on the surface of 16th Street Northwest, just a block north of the White House, by D.C.’s Department of Public Works. The move came after Trump ordered the National Guard to violently clear Lafayette Square of peaceful BLM protesters on June 1 so that he and some of his supporters could stage a photo of him holding aloft a Bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church.
“There was a dispute this week about whose street this is,” John Falcicchio, the chief of staff for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, wrote in a tweet at the time. “Mayor Bowser wanted to make it abundantly clear that this is D.C.’s street and to honor demonstrators who (were) peacefully protesting on Monday evening.” Mayor Bowser also tweeted a video surveying the mural accompanied by the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.
Bowser announced last week that the mural would be removed after Republican representative Andrew Clyde of Georgia filed legislation threatening to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding unless the city removed the mural and renamed the stretch of pavement “Liberty Plaza.”
In a statement on X, Bowser acknowledged the mural’s historic significance, but acknowledged that losing funding would be disastrous.
“We have long considered Black Lives Matter Plaza’s evolution and the plaza will be part of D.C.’s America 250 mural project, where we will invite students and artists to create new murals across all eight wards,” Bowser wrote. “The mural inspired millions of people and helped our city through a very painful period, but now we can’t afford to be distracted by meaningless congressional interference. The devastating impacts of the federal job cuts must be our number one concern. Our focus is on economic growth, public safety, and supporting our residents affected by these cuts.”
Megan Bailiff, CEO of Equus Striping, the pavement marking company that painted the letters, called the removal “historically obscene” in a conversation with an AP reporter, adding that the mural is ““more significant at this very moment than it ever has been in this country.” Protesters met the removal with banners speaking out against Trump.
Not everyone was in support of the mural when it was created, as Artnet News reported.
“This is performative and a distraction from her active counter organizing to our demands to decrease the police budget and invest in the community,” the D.C. chapter of Black Lives Matter wrote at the time. “Black Lives Matter means Defund the police.” Activists had argued against Bowser’s proposed 2021 budget, which increased police funding while cutting other programs, including a violence prevention initiative.
The Department of Public Works did not immediately answer an email inquiring about the demolition.
