The controversial mural, emblazoned on a downtown block of 16th Street, NW, in D.C. since 2020, is in the process of being deconstructed.
The famous “Black Lives Matter” mural that has adorned a block of 16th Street, just north of the White House since 2020 is being removed. City crews began the process of removal on March 10, days after D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser informed city residents that the city had “bigger fish to fry,” regarding the mural’s existence, The quote is in response to the threats from both Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration to limit funding to the city and/or have the federal government take over administration of the city—a reversal of the District of Columbia’s current self-governance. Mayor Bowser said the focus was now on the city’s survival.
The 48-foot wide mural, which spells out the words “BLACK LIVES MATTER” in bright yellow paint, was a response to the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020. Similar murals dotted various jurisdictions through the United States, but the D.C. mural became a symbol of the protests, both due to its location across from the White House and because of its sheer size. The area was renamed “Black Lives Matter Plaza” and traffic was blocked off; the mural itself has become a tourist attraction.
All of that now ends; the city’s Department of Transportation said the destruction of the mural could take anywhere from six to eight weeks because the plaza isn’t solely a painted-over street.
The reactions to the removal of the mural have been mixed, which tracks; the mural’s very existence was not without criticism, with many activists, including D.C.’s chapter of Black Lives Matter feeling that the mural was symbolic rather than actionable. But in a city known for its monuments and museums intended to document the country’s history, the mural became part of the fabric of the city’s DNA.
“I think it’s very sad. It’s like a monument,” said one tourist to Washington, D.C., who saw the beginnings of the demolition happen. Like many, she understood the decision of Mayor Bowser—who said the demolition of the mural had been long planned as part of an initiative to dot the city with murals in celebration of the 2026 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
“I needed to be here today. I can’t just let this go away,” said Starlette Thomas to a reporter; Thomas made sure to take a piece of the jackhammered street for posterity. Thomas said she was often part of the protests happening in 2020 in D.C., near the intersection of 16th and H Streets, where the mural would sit for five years. “To walk away with a piece of that, it means it’s not gone.”
Obviously, not everybody is unhappy that the mural is being removed. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), who sponsored the bill calling for withholding of federal funding for the city unless the mural was removed, said, “Our capital city must serve as a beacon of freedom, patriotism, and safety — not wokeness, divisiveness, and lawlessness,” while speaking about his bill, H.R. 1774.
Others aren’t deterred by the removal of a mural—pointing out that its just one symbol, but the greater movement is still alive.
“There was a movement, and there’s still going to be a movement,” said a former D.C. resident who now lives in Virginia, who stopped by to see the demolition. “This is not the end of it. 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.”
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