On Monday, construction crews began demolishing a “Black Lives Matter” street mural stretching two blocks of Washington, DC’s 16th Street NW.
According to Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, the decision to demolish the mural came after “pressure from the White House,” according to NBC Washington.
The mayor stated that after conversations that unmentioned individuals in the White House didn’t like the mural.
Of her decision to remove the mural, Bowser stated:
“We have bigger fish to fry than fights over what has been very important to us and to the history, and especially in our ability to keep our city safe during that time, that mural played a very important part. But now our focus is on making sure our residents and our economy survives.”
The Black Lives Matter street mural – consisting of the phrase painted over two blocks in yellow – was created to protest the death of George Floyd and instances of police brutality in 2020. At the time Mayor Bowser intended the mural to be a thing of permanence. The plaza containing the mural was also named “Black Lives Matter Plaza.”
Mayor Bowser plans to replace the mural with a new one honoring the 250th birthday of the US, which will be coming in the next year. However, it is currently unknown what the plaza’s new name will be.
Representative Andrew Clyde (GA) introduced legislation to withhold millions of dollars worth of federal funds from Washington DC if the mural remained and the plaza not renamed to Liberty Plaza.
This pending legislation had no effect on the decision to remove the mural, according to Mayor Bowser. Before Representative Clyde’s legislation, the city planned to remove the mural in preparation for the nation’s semiquincentennial.
