MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Crews here in Washington have started removing the Black Lives Matter street mural. The city created the painting back in 2020 just a few blocks from the White House amid a nationwide wave of protests after police murdered George Floyd. Sarah Y. Kim from member station WAMU reports.
SARAH Y KIM, BYLINE: On Monday morning, a few residents and visitors stopped to say goodbye to Black Lives Matter Plaza, a two-block mural composed of large yellow letters. They watched construction workers remove bollards from the street.
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KIM: D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser named the plaza and commissioned the mural shortly after federal officers tear gassed people in Lafayette Square peacefully protesting police brutality. It was seen as an act of defiance against President Donald Trump, but now the mayor is overseeing its destruction. D.C. native Karen George says she's upset, but there isn't much Bowser can do. The city has to remove the mural or risk losing federal funds.
KAREN GEORGE: It's a rock and a hard place for her. We're not a state. We're a district.
KIM: Her sister, Adrianne Lind, says she thought the mural would be permanent, a symbol of her city and a tourist attraction like the Washington Monument. She says it's painful to see it go but that it won't be forgotten.
ADRIANNE LIND: There's no such thing as erasure. If that's the attempt, it's just not possible to do because it's not just that we saw it, the whole world saw it.
KIM: Lind and George say they'd like to see it preserved in a museum or recreated elsewhere in the city. Dr. Reed Tuckson, former health commissioner for the city, says this is an all too familiar situation, where outsiders exert power over the people of D.C.
REED TUCKSON: Once again, we see the Congress treating this city as if we were not adults who could govern their own affairs.
KIM: Under a bill introduced last week in Congress, the street is expected to be redesignated as Liberty Plaza.
For NPR News, I'm Sarah Y. Kim in Washington.
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