When President Donald Trump sent heavily armed federal law enforcement officers and unidentified officers in riot gear into Washington, D.C. during the height of protests recently, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser responded by painting “BLACK LIVES MATTER” directly on the street leading to the White House.
With a few thin layers of paint, the city now loudly and clearly proclaims to assembling protesters, the public and Trump’s official helicopter lifting off from the White House that BLACK LIVES MATTER, presenting that message in the voice of civil authority: “safety color” yellow.
Ownership of this collective and democratic work is credited to Bowser, an African American woman and an elected official whom President Trump belittled as “incompetent” on Twitter after she criticized his choice to occupy D.C. streets with federal guards.
Bowser situated the phrase BLACK LIVES MATTER as an arrow pointing to Lafayette Square, the one-time marketplace for hundreds of enslaved Black people.
By making a point of the asphalt’s surface, Bowser’s artwork highlights the street as a site of domination, rebellion and politics: the pavement on which George Floyd’s face was pinned for 8 minutes and 46 seconds by former officer Derek Chauvin; the site of hundreds of thousands of global footsteps marching in solidarity; the turf on which more and more people take a knee to call for an end to racism and police brutality.
