Amid pressure from MAGA lawmakers and President Donald Trump, the bold yellow Black Lives Matter mural leading to the front door of the White House in Washington D.C. is being removed, ARTnews reports.
However, the removal doesn’t stop the work of the movement that highlighted police brutality following the tragic death of George Floyd as civil rights attorney Ben Crump pointed out on X.
“The removal of the BLM mural near the White House is more than just paint being stripped from the street—it’s a symbol of how quickly some want to erase the fight for justice and all our progress thus far,” he wrote on X. “But the movement isn’t about words on pavement—it lives in the people.”
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced plans for the BLM mural removal after the city was threatened by President Donald Trump to have millions cut from transportation funding. It was another way for Trump to eliminate practices of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) or “woke” policies, bringing the topic up during his speech to Congress in early March 2025.
“We have ended the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and, indeed, the private sector and our military,” he said. “And our country will be woke no longer.”
ad width="320" height="250" type="doubleclick" data-slot="/21868623726/site264.tmus/amp3" data-multi-size="320x50,300x250" data-multi-size-validation="false" rtc-config='{"vendors": {"prebidappnexuspsp": {"PLACEMENT_ID": "27198239"}}, "timeoutMillis": 500}'>As construction crews started to remove the 50-foot-wide artwork, D.C. residents and those who remembered when the mural first appeared in 2020 stopped to look on. Karen Long, who moved from D.C. to the suburbs of Arlington, Virginia, called the removal “somber,” according to USA Today, but said the movement will live on despite it being eliminated.
“This is not the end of it,” she said. “This is just somebody saying, ‘Hey, I don’t like that symbol being there’ because they feel some kind of way about it, so let them have it.”
Sharifa Ganthier said she remembered the mural as bringing a sense of “togetherness” during a time of turmoil as the artwork was created during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As lawmakers like Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) pushed legislation requiring the city to repaint and rename the plaza, claiming BLM is corrupt, Sahrifa’s husband, Marvin, said he still doesn’t understand why people were up in arms about the work in the first place. He also said its removal is a waste of resources that could be used elsewhere.
“I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with it,” Ganthier said. “They’re not saying your lives don’t matter.”
Replacing the art is part of a citywide mural project connected to 250th anniversary in 2026 of the country’s founding.
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