Washington: In June 2020, amid ongoing protests and civic unrest following the murder of George Floyd, city officials in the US capital commissioned a giant mural on a street just a block from the White House.

The words “Black Lives Matter” were painted on the road in bright yellow; each letter 11 metres long. With Donald Trump sitting metres away in the Oval Office, demanding Washington DC do more to quash the protests, the artwork was a show of solidarity with the BLM movement. It was also an act of defiance from a city that has always had to assert itself against attempted congressional and presidential control.

For nearly five years, the mural served as a reminder of that tumultuous summer, when anger about systemic racism and police brutality combined with unrest over the COVID-19 pandemic.

But now, the same mayor who commissioned the installation is ripping it up, in an acknowledgment that the deeply Democratic city must pick its battles against a new Trump White House and Republican-controlled Congress intent on meddling in its affairs.