Tens of thousands of protesters flooded Washington, D.C., Saturday and continued to occupy several city blocks around the White House as a historically large Black Lives Matter demonstration continued into the evening.
Earlier in the day, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser appeared at a block of 16th St. NW, which a day earlier she had renamed “Black Lives Matter Plaza,” and encouraged peaceful protests.
The mayor, a Democrat, praised them for standing up to the “army” of federal troops and officers that President Trump activated Monday in an attempt to instill “law and order” in the District.
Miss Bowser addressed the crowd Saturday for about two and a half minutes. She said she wanted her adopted 2-year-old daughter, Miranda, “to grow up and know that her mother had a chance to say ‘no’ and she did.”
“If he (Trump) can take over Washington, D.C., he can come for any state and none of us will be safe,” Miss Bowser said. “So today, we pushed the army away from our city. Our soldiers should not be treated that way. They should not be asked to move on American citizens.”
The mayor concluded with a quip she later repurposed on Twitter, a reference to the upcoming presidential election: “Today we say ‘no.’ In November, we say ‘next.’”
In response, Mr. Trump retweeted a tweet he wrote about the mayor Friday.
“[email protected] is grossly incompetent, and in no way qualified to be running an important city like Washington, D.C.,” the tweet reads. “If the great men and women of the National Guard didn’t step forward, she would have looked no better than her counterpart Mayor in Minneapolis!”
Mr. Trump wasn’t the only one to go after Miss Bowser. Some signs and chalk illustrations spotted around the District criticized the mayor — herself a black woman — for not doing enough to support Black Lives Matter.
“If black lives do matter to you Muriel Bowser then stop allowing our city to get gentrified,” one sign mounted on a bus stop read.
Black Lives Matter D.C. did not approve of Miss Bowser’s decision to rename the block near the White House “Black Lives Matter Plaza,” complete with large yellow lettering spelling the mantra out on the road.
“This is a performative distraction from real policy changes,” the group tweeted Friday.” Bowser has consistently been on the wrong side of BLMDC history. This is to appease white liberals while ignoring our demands. Black Lives Matter means defund the police.”
Some protesters began writing rebuttals on the yellow lettering Saturday, including one that said, “F– the ‘mural,’ change the system.”
Protesters began to gather late in the morning around the Lincoln Memorial and crowds grew in a number of parts of the city in the next few hours. The movement was decentralized, with different marches led by groups like Refuse Fascism, Freedom Fighters D.C., Black Lives Matter D.C. and the University of the District of Columbia’s Black Law Student Association that all eventually convened by the White House.
Throughout the afternoon, there were no indications of violence by either protesters or law enforcement. The police presence appeared to be scaled back from recent days, but some officers dressed in military fatigues could be seen blocking off some streets.
While many demonstrators expressed anger and pain over the deaths of black people like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, there was also a thread of joy in many parts of the area. Music, mostly go-go, was played in some corners and intersections of the protesters’ area. Some people sprawled out over grassy areas to paint more signs, and a few street artists even painted murals over the wood panels on boarded-up banks and businesses.
Saturday was the 12th day of protests around the U.S. and the ninth in the District, following the death of Mr. Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis on Memorial Day.
Some businesses in this area are boarded up. And some of those boards of wood are being used as art canvasses: pic.twitter.com/kYgF34RjlD
— Adam Zielonka (@Adam_Zielonka) June 6, 2020
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