The bold yellow letters that make up the “Black People’s Fate is Fate” Square are now permanently part of the urban landscape of Washington, DC.
This permanent installation spans two blocks of 16th Street northwest in front of the White House, and is made up of the words “Black people’s fate is also fate” in yellow concrete. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) announced on October 28 the completion of the Black Lives Matter Plaza consisting of yellow fonts, two opposite lanes and a pedestrian plaza between the lanes. Because the mural faded within a few months after the initial installation, city officials are now making the lettering permanent by applying a layer of thermoplastic paint designed to withstand weather conditions and fading.
Bowser said in a press release on October 28 that the mural demonstrates that people are capable of implementing changes, and its permanent installation further strengthens this belief.
“When we created Black Lives Matter Plaza in June 2020, we sent a strong message, namely Black Lives Matter, this power has always and will always belong to people of good intentions,” Bowser said in the press release. “Today, we turned this mural into a monument.”
After the National Guard violently forced peaceful protesters to leave the area so that former President Donald Trump could take pictures with the bible, Bowser originally declared the neighborhood in June 2020 as “the fate of black people.”
Keyonna Jones, founder and executive director of the Capitol Heights Center for Arts and Culture and one of the eight artists, said that Black Lives Matter Plaza and the same murals it inspired in 19 other cities showed the initial impact of this mural on the global movement Commissioned by the school district to draw murals in 2020.
“Treatment starts in the internal space, then enters the public space, and then becomes global,” Jones said in a telephone interview with The Hoya. “I think the moment the mural appeared, and how it was replicated all over the world, just shows this.”
Some militant organizations, such as the Washington Chapter, where blacks are also fate, claimed that the original murals on Black’s fate are an example of activism. This undermined Bowser’s lack of substantial reforms to the criminal justice system in the region. The system generally allows black residents of the District of Columbia to receive harsher penalties and unfair convictions.
According to Bowser in the press release, the permanent installation of this mural marks the progress that has been made and the work still to be done.
“One of my proudest memories of Black Lives Matter Plaza is that in his last days, Congressman John Lewis came to visit in person,” Bowser said in a press release. “He thinks Black Lives Matter Plaza is a great trouble, and we know that as we work hard to build a more perfect alliance, it will still be a gathering place for reflection, planning and action.”
To date, the district has spent US$4.8 million in efforts to make the Black Lives Matter Plaza’s murals permanent. According to the press release, future changes aimed at making the area more accessible are coming.
“In the next few months, an additional $3 million will be used to rebuild nearby sidewalks, install commemorative works, and add new benches, lighting, signs, and sidewalk trees to create a more cohesive public space around the monument. “Wrote in the press release.
According to Jones, by making the murals into permanent installations, people will remember the message and goals of the “Black People’s Fate” movement.
“I hope people can remember what that era was like and how art can change the paradigm and understand that art is history,” Jones said. “If we do not have these cultural relics, or if we do not have these moments, these monuments and these sculptures, many things that have not been recorded may disappear in history.”