(SRN NEWS/REUTERS/97.5 GLORY FM) – You may have read or heard that construction workers began removing Washington, D.C.’s Black Lives Matter Plaza mural on Monday, but did you know that was the result of congressional action started by 9th District Congressman Andrew Clyde?
Mayor Muriel Bowser pledged to redesign the plaza in response to Republican threats to cut the city’s transportation funding unless it was renamed.
Clyde (R-Jackson County) alluded to his role in bringing the mayor’s action about in his weekly newsletter which was sent out Monday.
“It’s past time for Congress to exercise its constitutional authority over Washington’s affairs to remove BLM Plaza and rename the street to Liberty Plaza. Our capital city must serve as a beacon of freedom, patriotism, and safety — not wokeness, divisiveness, and lawlessness.
“I think we should take over Washington, D.C. — make it safe. I think that we should govern District of Columbia.”
Congress has the authority to vet all D.C. laws, even outright overturn them, under terms of the Home Rule Act of 1973 that allowed the district some local autonomy.
Monday, workers in reflective vests and hard hats drilled away the two-block pedestrian stretch of painted yellow letters spelling “BLACK LIVES MATTER” in downtown Washington just north of the White House as onlookers watched.
Bowser had ordered the creation of Black Lives Matter Plaza in 2020 after nationwide anti-racism protests following the murder of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes. The plaza became an epicenter of such demonstrations.