A “Black Lives Matter” street mural that adorned two blocks of 16th Street Northwest near the White House in Washington, DC is in the process of being removed, according to reporting by The New York Times and NPR.
The mural was created in spring 2020 amid global protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd, a Black man whose death at the hands of Minnesota police became an inflection point for national conversations about racial injustice in the United States. Painted by the organisation MuralsDC, the yellow text design was one of numerous Black Lives Matter murals created across the country during that period.
In 2021, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that the mural would become a permanent fixture of a new, partially pedestrianised esplanade called “Black Lives Matter Plaza”. Last week, Bowser declared that the mural and surrounding plaza would be dismantled. The policy reversal follows the introduction of a bill by Andrew Clyde, a Republican representative from Georgia, that would withhold millions of dollars in federal funding from Washington if the mural is not removed and the strip of road renamed “Liberty Plaza”.
Bowser implied that the mural is being removed in response to the threatened withholding of federal funds, posting on X: “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 Democratic mayor's statement suggests that the plaza will gain a new mural in 2026 as part of the celebrations of the US's semiquincentennial, whereby the city will “invite students and artists to create new murals across all eight wards”.
The Trump administration’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and wide-ranging cuts carried out by the new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) have spurred the mass firing of federal workers, which could cumulatively cost the city of Washington over $1bn in lost revenue over the next three years. The president’s insistence on highlighting the nation’s semiquincentennial in lieu of other initiatives is evidence of a sea shift in US priorities, with discussions of the country's history of racism, genocide and systemic inequity being sidelined in favour of patriotic celebration.
A crowd of onlookers gathered at Black Lives Matter Plaza on 10 March as workers with jackhammers began to dismantle the mural, cobblestones and bollards, a process that is projected to take several weeks. Megan Bailiff, the chief executive of Equus Striping, the pavement marking company that painted the yellow letters, was among the witnesses, and told the Associated Press that the mural’s erasure is “historically obscene”, adding that its existence was “more significant at this very moment than it ever has been in this country”.