DC’s Black Lives Matter Plaza near White House to be renamed
Washington, D.C.’s Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House will be renamed due to funding cut threats.
WASHINGTON – The nation’s capital plans to paint over a large, yellow “Black Lives Matter” mural that was erected one block from the White House during racial justice protests in 2020, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced Tuesday.
The move comes as congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump have threatened to interfere with the city’s management. On Monday, Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., introduced legislation that would require the city to repaint and rename the plaza or else lose millions of dollars in transportation funding.
Bowser, a Democrat, appeared to address the legislation in a post on X, announcing the change Tuesday night.
“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,” she said. “The devastating impacts of the federal job cuts must be our number one concern.”
The plaza will be repainted as part of a citywide mural project celebrating the country’s 250th birthday next year, Bowser said in the statement. When reached for comment Wednesday, the mayor’s office declined to reveal whether the city will also rename Black Lives Matter Plaza.
The legislation introduced by Clyde threatens to withhold transportation funding unless the city removes the Black Lives Matter lettering from the street, renames the intersection to Liberty Plaza and removes any mention of Black Lives Matter from the city’s websites and official documents.
It is the most recent in a string of proposals from Republican lawmakers that seek to strip the district of its power to govern itself. In February, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., introduced legislation that would repeal the district’s “home rule” status, citing what they called the city’s failures, including high crime rates, such as car jackings and assaults against members of Congress and staffers.
Named the Bringing Oversight to Washington and Safety to Every Resident (BOWSER) Act, the bill would reverse the district’s more than 50 years of self-rule at a time when its residents have overwhelmingly pushed for statehood.
Trump in February expressed support for the federal government to “take over” and govern the District of Columbia.
In a statement to USA TODAY, Clyde said he was “pleased” by Bowser’s announcement but planned to continue pursuing his legislative effort until Black Lives Matter Plaza was “officially gone for good.”
Bowser originally directed crews to paint the roughly 50-foot-wide mural on a section of 16th Street where protests erupted in summer 2020 over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Protesters were at one point forcibly removed from the area with smoke canisters and pepper spray just before Trump, who was in his first term, walked through Lafayette Park to pose for photographs at a nearby church.
After the incident, Bowser’s chief of staff said the mayor wanted to make it “abundantly clear” the street belonged to the city. The plaza quickly became a symbol of defiance against the Trump administration.
The D.C. chapter of Black Lives Matter decried the move as “a performative distraction from real policy changes” at the time and said it was an attempt to “appease white liberals” while ignoring the movement’s demands.
Black Lives Matter D.C. did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Bowser’s decision to replace the mural.
Contributing: Deborah Barfield Berry, USA TODAY
