New York: Mayor Bill de Blasio paints “Black Lives Matter” lettering

The city of New York has painted the anti-racism slogan “Black Lives Matter” in capital letters on the street in front of the Trump Tower in Manhattan. Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife Chirlane McCray also took part in the action.

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“Black Lives Matter” has been the motto of protests against racism and police violence against black people in the US for years. After the death of the African American George Floyd in a brutal police operation in Minneapolis in late May, protesters across the country took to the streets under this motto.

US President Donald Trump had previously expressed his rejection of the lettering on Fifth Avenue. This denigrates the luxury street, said the president. He called the slogan a “symbol of hatred”.

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New York is not the first US city to send a signal with the words “Black Lives Matter”: At the beginning of June, the mayor of the capital Washington, the Democrat Muriel Bowser, had the motto painted on a street near the White House. She also renamed the street section Black-Lives-Matter-Platz. In Martinez, California, Trump supporters had painted over the slogan – even though the authors had permission from the authorities (see the incident in the video).

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The Democrat de Blasio recently said that painting the lettering in front of the Trump Tower is not only an “important message to the entire nation”. It is also a message to Trump, who “has never shown respect for these three words”.

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