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Construction workers started to dismantle the Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House on Monday following threats by Republicans to cut transportation funding if the plaza was not renamed.
“You can dig up concrete but you cannot erase history,” said DC resident Dianne Bradley.
Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser changed the name of the plaza in 2020 to Black Lives Matter Plaza, as a rebuke to President Trump, who had deployed thousands of federal troops to the city to counter people protesting against the murder of George Floyd by a police officer.
The renaming was criticised by the local chapter of the Black Lives Matter Global Network, which called it “a performative distraction from real policy changes”.
