By
Fenit Nirappil,
Julie Zauzmer and
Rachel Chason
(TWP)
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser renamed the street in front of the White House “Black Lives Matter Plaza” on Friday and emblazoned the slogan in massive yellow letters on the road, a pointed salvo in her escalating dispute with President Trump over control of D.C. streets.
The actions are meant to honor demonstrators who are urging changes in police practices after the killing in police custody of George Floyd in Minneapolis, city officials said.
They come after several days in which the mayor strongly objected to the escalation of federal law enforcement and a military response to days of protests and unrest in the nation’s capital.
Local artist Rose Jaffe said she and others joined city work crews to paint the giant slogan, starting around 4 a.m.
The art will take up two blocks on 16th Street NW, between K and H streets, an iconic promenade that leads directly north of the White House.
Shortly after 11 a.m., a city worker hung up a “Black Lives Matter Plz NW” sign at the corner of 16th and H streets NW. Bowser (D) watched silently as onlookers cheered and the song “Rise Up” by Audra Day played from speakers.
“In America, you can peacefully assemble,” she said in brief remarks to the crowd.
Trump has urged a crackdown on protesters, outraged by sporadic cases of looting in Washington and some other cities. He and Attorney General William P. Barr have marshaled a huge influx of federal police and National Guard units to the capital against Bowser’s wishes.
Several days ago, Trump falsely accused Bowser on Twitter of refusing to allow D.C. police to assist in crowd control in Lafayette Square.
Bah-Pna Dahane, an immigrant originally from Chad, said he was finishing up a run near the White House Friday morning when he saw the street-painting effort and decided to pitch in.
Dahane, 45, said he wanted to volunteer because he has been a victim of police brutality in New York and knows that change won’t happen if people don’t act.
“I said, ‘You know what, let’s do it, let’s make it happen,’ ” he said as he painted.
People paint the “Black Lives Matter” slogan on 16th Street NW in Washington on Friday. (Toni Sandys/The Washington Post)
City workers included a D.C. flag at the end of the display in front of St. John’s Church, close to where federal law enforcement cleared the street on Monday night just before Trump walked over and posed for news cameras, a Bible in his hand.
“There was a dispute this week about whose street it is, and Mayor Bowser wanted to make it abundantly clear whose street it is and honor the peaceful demonstrators who assembled Monday night,” said John Falcicchio, the mayor’s chief of staff.
The group Black Lives Matter DC reacted to the street painting with criticism of the mayor, saying she should decrease the budget for the Metropolitan Police Department and “invest in the community.”
Bowser’s proposed budget increases funding for traditional policing while cutting spending on programs to reduce violence through community-based intervention initiatives.
“This is performative and a distraction from her active counter organizing to our demands,” the group said on Twitter. “Black Lives Matter means Defund the police.”
Jaffe, one of the local artists who was painting Friday morning, said she, too, would like Bowser to cut funding for the police department. She said she also would like to see officers express more support for protests, which began a week ago in the District.
“I’m conflicted about doing it. It’s about wanting to reclaim the streets, but I also know that it is a little bit of a photo op,” said Jaffe, a D.C. native. “Where is the action behind this?”
In a letter Thursday, Bowser formally asked Trump to “withdraw all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence from Washington, D.C.”
Demonstrations on both Wednesday and Thursday night were largely peaceful, and Bowser has lifted a curfew she had imposed earlier in the week. The federal and military presence on the streets had shrunk to almost nothing.
“The deployment of federal law enforcement personnel and equipment are inflaming demonstrators and adding to the grievances of those who, by and large, are peacefully protesting for change and for reforms to the racist and broken systems that are killing Black Americans,” Bowser wrote in the letter.
The mayor criticized unidentified federal law enforcement officials for patrolling the streets of her city and operating outside “established chains of commands.”
“The multiplicity of forces can breed dangerous confusion, such as when helicopters are used in a war-like tactic to frighten and disperse peaceful protestors,” she wrote. “My view is that law enforcement should be in place to protect the rights of American citizens, not restrict them.”
