(AFP) – Workers in Washington on Monday began removing a “Black Lives Matter” street mural installed during the height of 2020 racial justice protests, bowing to pressure from President Donald Trump. Large, yellow lettering reading “Black Lives Matter” has been painted on a roadway near the White House since June 2020, when protests broke out across the nation following the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man.
City officials in the US capital have credited the art installation with calming tensions near the White House, where violent clashes between protesters and security personnel had occurred in the days prior. Trump, who was president at the time of the unrest, returned to office in January seeking to overturn so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices which spread widely throughout the public and private sectors following the George Floyd protests. Congressional Republicans and Trump aides had eyed the mural as part of their move to force changes in the administration of Washington, an overwhelmingly Democratic city.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, has sought to establish a good working relationship with Trump, seeking to head off Republican calls for fully overturning the city’s right to govern itself. She has also been worried that mass layoffs of federal workers by Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk could wreak havoc on the city’s finances.
“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,” Bowser told reporters last week. “But now our focus is on making sure our residents and our economy survives.” When asked if it was in response to White House pressure, she said: “I’m not going to talk about specifics… but I think it’s safe to say that people don’t like it, didn’t like it.”
As jackhammers plowed away Monday at the pavement, numerous onlookers snapped photos of the work. Two African American women told AFP they had come to get a final look at the mural, expressing dismay at the decision to remove it. Both said they were lifelong Democrats. “It’s history… and now they’re basically saying it didn’t happen,” said one of the two, a 54-year-old caregiver from nearby Virginia who requested anonymity because of her political work.
“The money you’re spending to remove it could’ve been spent on so many other things,” she said. “What’s next?” asked her friend, 57-year-old Tajuana McCallister, a healthcare worker in Maryland. “Black history clearly doesn’t matter to him,” she said, nodding toward the White House. The site, erected during the protests, showed leaders “have compassion, (were saying) ‘we hear you,'” according to the caregiver. Its removal, she said, shows “what you (leaders) said didn’t matter.”
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