Cities Across the US Are Painting Massive Black Lives Matter Slogans on Their Streets, Following in the Footsteps of Washington, DC

In Washington, DC, the words
“BLACK LIVES MATTER” appeared on Friday night in 35-foot-long yellow letters across two
blocks directly north of the White House. 

The mural, commissioned by DC
Mayor Muriel Bowser, went viral before it was even completed. Civil
rights leader and Georgia representative John Lewis, who is
currently undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer, pilgrimaged
to see it on Sunday, calling it a “powerful work of
art.”
And Apple updated its
satellite imagery of the capital city to include a view of it from space.

Since then, cities across the
country have followed DC’s lead and painted their own massive
murals on municipal property. The phrase “END RASCISM NOW”
popped up in bold yellow paint on Sunday morning in Raleigh, on a
street next to the Contemporary Art Museum. 

Museum board member Charman
Driver led the effort, along with her husband and a dozen
volunteers, who started the painting the work early Sunday
morning. 

Driver originally sought to
paint the message on the street leading up to the grounds of the
state capitol building, on which several Confederate monuments sit.
But Raleigh’s mayor, Mary-Ann Baldwin, denied the request, noting
that the road in question was owned by the state. Eventually she
directed the activists to the Warehouse District, near the
museum.

“We did it. And it’s wonderful.
And we feel really good about it,” Driver told the Raleigh News &
Observer. “Our
voices are being heard, but it’s not enough. We want to paint that
block, but what we want ultimately is for those statues to be
removed.” 

In Sacramento, activists painted
their own “BLACK LIVES MATTER” message in the grass across three
medians on the city’s Capitol Mall, just west of the California
capitol building. The project, commissioned by Sacramento city
councilman Steve Hansen and coordinated by local nonprofit The
Atrium, was led by artist Demetris “BAMR” Washington and executed
with the help of some 300 volunteers. 

All in all, it took five hours
to complete, Washington explained on
Instagram. “[We’re] just trying to get this message out
there in a very positive way,” he told the Sacramento
Bee. “A lot of people
out here for the cause. Everybody coming together for one thing and
that’s unity.”

Meanwhile, an hour away,
hundreds of artists and activists in Oakland used 75 gallons of
yellow paint to imprint the movement’s message in 25-foot-long
letters on a street spanning three consecutive
blocks. 

The mural was organized by
Poncho Kachingwe, the owner of a local bar and gallery. And while
it started in guerrilla fashion, city hall ultimately granted the
grassroots endeavor permission after police officers tried to
intervene. 

“Normally I would just go by the
rules and try to make sure we’re doing everything by the book, but
this was like, it’s gotta be in the moment,” Kachingwe told
KCBS. “If it’s not in
the moment, it’s not really showing the true spirit of
Oakland.”  

The post Cities Across the US Are Painting Massive Black
Lives Matter Slogans on Their Streets, Following in the Footsteps
of Washington, DC appeared first on artnet News.