WASHINGTON — Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser indicated that the nation’s capital city is moving to repaint the street at Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House. It comes one day after a Republican House member introduced legislation to require the mayor to rename the street amid President Donald Trump’s push to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
In a statement on X on Tuesday, Bowser said the “evolution” of the plaza will be a part of Washington’s America 250 mural project in which the city intends to invite students and artists to create new paintings across the city.
The mayor, however, went on to note the significance of the two-block-long mural displaying the words “Black Lives Matter” that her office requested be painted — along with ordering the street be renamed — in the wake of days of protests over the killing of George Floyd by a police officer.
“The mural inspired millions of people and helped our city through a painful period, but now we can’t afford to be distracted by meaningless congressional interference,” the mayor wrote before adding that her team’s focus must be on helping Washington residents cope with the wide-scale layoffs of government employees amid the Trump administration’s full-force efforts, via Elon Musk and the U.S. DOGE Service, to downsize the federal workforce.
“The devastating impacts of the federal job cuts must be our number one concern,” Bowser wrote.
Asked at a news briefing Wednesday whether the move was an effort to avoid smaller tiffs with the White House and Republican-controlled Congress, Bowser responded, “We have bigger fish to fry,” adding her focus is on making sure residents and the local economy survives.
The statement came a day after Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia introduced a bill demanding the mayor remove the “Black Lives Matter” words from the street, rename the intersection “Liberty Plaza” and scrub the phrase from government websites and documents. The legislation, if passed, would withhold federal funds from going to the nation’s capital if such actions aren’t taken.
“Yet the Left has allowed this deeply divisive slogan to shamefully stain the streets of America’s capital city for nearly five years,” Clyde wrote in a statement. “It’s past time for Congress to exercise its constitutional authority over Washington’s affairs to remove BLM Plaza and rename the street to Liberty Plaza.”
At Wednesday’s briefing, Bowser said her office does not support the legislation but said there would be a “city-wide discussion” when asked specifically about whether she would move to rename the street.
The mayor’s office declined to provide additional comment on Clyde’s legislation or details on the plans for the street when asked via email by Spectrum News.
