OAN Staff Blake Wolf
1:53 PM – Wednesday, March 5, 2025
The “Black Lives Matter” ground mural in Washington, D.C., which has exhibited on a street in the Nation’s Capital for over four years, is slated to be painted over sometime in the future, accompanied by a name change for “Black Lives Matter Plaza.”
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A spokesperson for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser confirmed that the change will be happening, although it is unclear as to when the removal is expected to take place on the two-block-long pedestrian section of 16th Street NW in downtown Washington, D.C.
The ground mural was painted in 2020 following the death of George Floyd — a part-time security guard whose death inspired a series of national protests against police brutality toward Black people. Floyd’s last words before he died with fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system, while officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck, were “I can’t breathe” — which became a rallying slogan for the BLM movement.
The move to paint over the BLM street mural and change the plaza name follows after Representative Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) introduced a bill to “withhold certain apportionment funds from the District of Columbia unless the Mayor of the District of Columbia removes the phrase Black Lives Matter from the street symbolically designated as Black Lives Matter Plaza.”
The bill also called for the street to be renamed from “Black Lives Matter Plaza” to “Liberty Plaza.”
Clyde celebrated the announcement of the name change, writing in an X post: “This woke, divisive slogan will no longer stain the streets of America’s capital city.”
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser seemingly caved into the pressure from the Republican-controlled Congress, announcing that the initiate to change the plaza name and BLM mural will be a part of a new project called “America 250 mural project” — where students and artists are invited to “create new murals across all eight wards.”
“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,” Bowser wrote in a Wednesday statement.
Bowser’s statement also blasted President Donald Trump’s work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is focused on cutting waste, fraud, and overspending in the federal government.
“The devastating impacts of the federal job cuts must be our number one concern. Our focus is on economic growth, public safety, and supporting our residents affected by these cuts,” she added.
Meanwhile, Nee Nee Taylor, a founding member of a Black Lives Matter affiliate in D.C., responded to Bowser’s announcement, angrily declaring: “You never cared about Black Lives Mattering. You painting those words were performative.”
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