Bowser signals D.C. will paint over BLM Plaza after GOP threatens funding

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) signaled Tuesday that the city would paint a new mural at Black Lives Matter Plaza outside the White House after a Republican lawmaker introduced a bill threatening millions of dollars in transportation funding if Bowser did not agree to erase and rename it.

Bowser’s announcement about what she referred to as the “evolution of the plaza” represents a remarkable retreat from her defiant posture toward President Donald Trump during his first term that led her to order the creation of Black Lives Matter Plaza.

Bowser drew Trump’s ire in 2020 when she ordered the slogan be painted in large yellow letters on 16th Street during historic racial justice protests outside the White House. Bowser’s move became a national symbol of resistance against Trump, who reacted by calling the mayor “incompetent,” and Republicans have taken aim at the plaza ever since.

Bowser’s decision on the plaza came after Rep. Andrew Clyde , R-Georgia , filed legislation Monday to force D.C. to cooperate in erasing and renaming Black Lives Matter Plaza or else Congress would withhold millions of dollars in federal transportation funds.

The legislation would require Bowser to adopt the name Liberty Plaza and remove every mention of BLM Plaza from city websites and documents. If enacted, the legislation would put at least $185 million in transportation funding on the line this year alone in the event Bowser didn’t cooperate.

A spokeswoman for Clyde did not immediately respond to questions about whether Bowser’s announcement that the city would paint over Black Lives Matter Plaza would satisfy Clyde and whether he would still pursue the legislation.

Asked for her response to Clyde’s bill, Bowser said in a statement that her administration has decided to make Black Lives Matter Plaza part of America’s 250th birthday celebration, which includes a mural project inviting students and artists to paint a mural in each of D.C.’s eight wards. Black Lives Matter Plaza will be one location.

“The mural inspired millions of people and helped our city through a very painful period, but now we can’t afford to be distracted by meaningless congressional interference,” Bowser said, before turning her attention to pressing economic issues in the city caused by Trump’s federal jobs cuts. “The devastating impacts of the federal job cuts must be our number one concern. Our focus is on economic growth, public safety, and supporting our residents affected by these cuts.”

Her statement was silent on whether she would rename it Liberty Plaza and a spokeswoman did not immediately clarify.

The plaza is on 16th Street NW between H and K streets, and was the site of protests in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Bowser ordered the street renamed – and had artists and city workers paint the slogan before dawn – in June 2020, four days after Trump ordered federal law enforcement to clear largely peaceful racial justice protesters ahead of his photo op holding a Bible in front of St. John’s Church.

Since Trump’s win in November, Bowser has taken a muted and conciliatory approach to the president, frequently avoiding critical comments about Trump’s agenda while looking for areas of collaboration, such as sprucing up federal park space or redeveloping underused federal buildings. D.C. officials have been wary of drawing Trump’s anger or drawing attention to areas of disagreement, lest he or Republicans decide to wield more power over the District, which under the Constitution is overseen by Congress.

Republicans, for example, have introduced legislation to repeal home rule, which grants the city the power to elect a local government, and Trump – though he said he had a good relationship with Bowser – said last month that the federal government should take over the city.

Bowser has chosen her words carefully when speaking about the president. For example, she was asked in her first public appearance after Trump’s election in November what she would do if Trump asked her to pave over Black Lives Matter. She avoided the topic, saying, “It’s public art, so I don’t want to get into a back and forth with you about a conversation we haven’t had yet.”

In introducing the bill, Clyde said the left “has allowed this deeply divisive slogan to shamefully stain the streets of America’s capital city for nearly five years.”

“President Trump is 100% right: we must clean up Washington, D.C. for the American people,” Clyde said in a statement about the bill, whose introduction was first reported by Breitbart. “I believe that removing BLM Plaza must be part of this critical effort.”

If Clyde’s bill were enacted, it would condition hundreds of millions of dollars in federal highway funds that help D.C. maintain roads and bridges on Bowser’s agreement to the Liberty Plaza name change. Congress would withhold 50 percent of the federal highway money that D.C. receives every year until the plaza is renamed. In fiscal year 2025, D.C. received roughly $370 million in federal highway funds and expects to receive $1.6 billion over the next six years, according to the D.C. Council budget office.

Clyde’s bill is the first stand-alone measure introduced to try to compel the name change. Two other Republicans, Lauren Boebert (R) and August Pfluger (Texas), have tried unsuccessfully to defund the signage for the plaza through amendments to D.C.’s appropriations.

Clyde called Black Lives Matter a “radical” group wanting to defund the police.

“Our capital city must serve as a beacon of freedom, patriotism, and safety – not wokeness, divisiveness, and lawlessness,” Clyde said.

Efforts targeting the plaza were less likely to succeed with President Joe Biden in the White House and Democrats in control of the Senate – but Republicans now have a trifecta, and there appears to be more of an appetite to get rid of the plaza.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) – who otherwise has had a friendly relationship with Bowser and helped the city get control of the RFK Stadium site – expressed a desire to undo BLM Plaza in a statement to the New York Post over the weekend. His stance is notable considering his committee has congressional oversight of the city.

“The House Oversight Committee and the Trump Administration are working on delivering a number of reforms to make our nation’s capital safe and end left-wing pet projects. This includes addressing partisan abuses by the District government such as Black Lives Matter Plaza,” Comer said.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), who has been vocal against Congress’s efforts to try to name various D.C. streets, said he wanted members of Congress to focus on the pressing issues facing the city, such as confirming a backlog of D.C. judges, allowing the city to regulate marijuana or helping the city with housing affordability. “Instead of members of Congress expending energy on symbols, we need them to be real about real problems,” Mendelson said, minutes before the mayor released a statement.

Through a spokeswoman, he declined to say more after the mayor’s statement.

At the time Bowser ordered the street painted, Bowser and D.C. officials strongly objected to the use of unidentified federal law enforcement clearing protesters on city property, and sought to reclaim the street while sending a message in support of the demonstrators. “When we created Black Lives Matter Plaza in June 2020, we sent a strong message that Black Lives Matter, and that power has always been and always will be with well-meaning people,” Bowser said in 2021.

But the statement never particularly resonated with D.C.’s racial justice activists, who were critical of the mayor in 2020, seeing the move as an empty gesture. The D.C. Black Lives Matter chapter called it a “performative distraction from real policy changes,” while calling on the mayor to support defunding the police instead. A day after Bowser ordered the yellow “Black Lives Matter” painting, racial justice activists added their own statement in the same bright yellow paint: “DEFUND THE POLICE.”

Alex Dodds, co-founder of Free DC, a campaign to protect D.C. home rule, criticized Bowser’s decision and described Clyde’s bill as an attempt to “intimidate” the city. “We need leaders right now who recognize that complying in advance does not make us safer,” Dodds said. “Clyde is threatening to hold federal funds hostage if he doesn’t get what he wants, and that’s not about a street – that’s about making an entire city feel fearful. It’s up to all of us right now to loudly reject this.”

In October 2021, the Bowser administration completed a $4.8 million construction project that overhauled traffic lanes and made improvements to public space. At the time, her administration called it a “permanent monument.”