Construction workers began removing Washington, D.C.’s Black Lives Matter Plaza mural on Monday, after Mayor Muriel Bowser pledged to redesign the plaza in response to Republican threats to cut the city’s transportation funding unless it was renamed.
Workers in reflective vests and hard hats drilled away the two-block pedestrian stretch of painted yellow letters spelling “BLACK LIVES MATTER” in downtown Washington just north of the White House as onlookers watched.
Bowser had ordered the creation of Black Lives Matter Plaza in 2020 after nationwide anti-racism protests following the murder of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes. The plaza became an epicenter of such demonstrations.
