Group of FL Republicans want D.C. mayor to remove Black Lives Matter mural

BY: MiTCH PERRY 

Claiming that the Black Lives Matter movement has demonstrated support for Hamas following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack against Israel, six Florida Republicans, including U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, are calling on Washington, D.C., Mayor Miriam Bowser to rename Black Lives Matter Plaza in the nation’s capital and remove the street mural that bears the organization’s name.

As protests broke out against police brutality and racial inequality in the immediate aftermath of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in June 2020, a mural featuring the words “Black Lives Matter” in 50-foot-tall capital yellow letters was painted alongside two blocks of 16th Street NW, just outside of the White House. The area was renamed “Black Lives Matter Plaza NW” by Bowser, according to Washington.org, the city’s official tourism website.

Now 25 GOP members of Congress have written a letter to Bowser, urging her to “immediately” rename Black Lives Matter Plaza and erase the mural “due to that movement’s celebration of violent antisemitic terrorism.”

Along with Rubio and Scott, four Florida House Republicans — Scott Franklin from Polk County, John Rutherford from Jacksonville, Gus Bilirakis from Pasco County, and North Central Florida’s Michael Waltz — all signed the letter.

As proof of that sentiment, the Republicans cite a now deleted tweet sent out by the Chicago BLM chapter which showed an image of a Palestinian terrorist paragliding into Israel to kill Jews with the caption, “I stand with Palestine.”

They also say the D.C. chapter of BLM posted that Israel was guilty of apartheid, “while sharing posts that cast doubt on the atrocities that took place on Oct. 7, including the beheading of babies.” And they wrote that BLM Grassroots, which they claim is “the ideological leader of BLM right now, also threw its support behind these murderous attacks.”

“These posts are meant to delegitimize Israel and rationalize brutal attacks on the Jewish people,” the Republicans write in their letter.

“It is hard to escape the conclusion that these statements are motivated by an ugly animus against the Jewish people. BLM Grassroots said the Hamas attack ‘must not be condemned but understood’ as resistance to ’75 years of settler colonialism and apartheid.’ Those 75 years account for the entire existence of the Jewish state,” they wrote.

“You stated after the attacks that you ‘reject terrorism in all its forms’ and that ‘antisemitism has no place in our institutions, our country, our world, or our hearts,’” the letter to Bowser continues. “We wholeheartedly agree with this statement. We further believe that movements that celebrate violent antisemitism should not be honored by the government with a plaza, especially one located directly outside of our nation’s White House.”

The idea of removing the BLM mural rankles some in the Black community, however.“The mural was put up there at a moment when African-Americans and the nation were going through a lot of stress at the time,” says Yvette Lewis, the Hillsborough County chair of the NAACP. “It sounds like politicians are using this as an excuse to get rid of it and justify their means.”

Lewis says when she hears the phrase “Black Lives Matter,” she’s thinking about the sentiment behind it, not any organization.

“When I say Black Lives Matter, I’m referring to my life, not an organization. So when I say that, don’t equate me with antisemitism. My thing is that mural was put there for a reason, not for an organization, but for the lives that have been killed at the hands of police and law enforcement.”

Apology

The Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter apologized on Oct. 11 on X for the post mentioned in the letter sent to Bowser.

“Yesterday we sent out msgs that we aren’t proud of,” the group wrote. “We stand with Palestine & the people who will do what they must to live free. Our hearts are with the grieving mothers, those rescuing babies from rubble, who are in danger of being wiped out completely.”

BLM Grassroots sent out a message on their Instagram page on Oct. 10 regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict. “When a people have been subject to decades of apartheid and unimaginable violence, their resistance must not be condemned, but understood as a desperate act of self-defense,” the group wrote.

The Phoenix reached out to both Mayor Bowser and BLM Grassroots for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Israel has been at war with Hamas since the surprise attacks that killed 1,400 people, including at least 32 U.S. citizens. Hamas continues to hold around 200 hostages, including Americans.

Palestinian officials said Tuesday that 704 people were killed overnight and more than 5,700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the fighting began, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday afternoon. The paper adds that those numbers couldn’t be independently verified.

Originally published on October 24th, 2023, in the Florida Phoenix.

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