BLM mural on Tulsa's 'Black Wall Street' to be erased after Republicans seek to paint 'Back the Blue' on a road

The sign had been painted on by activists just before Juneteeth without the permission of city officials

PUBLISHED JUL 31, 2020

TULSA, OKLAHOMA: A massive 250-foot-long "Black Lives Matter" mural painted on a street in Tulsa's Greenwood Avenue, once famously referred to as "Black Wall Street," will be washed away after city councilors ruled that it wasn't legal. A group of activists had painted the street sign without the city's permission just before Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the emancipation of those that had been enslaved in the United States, according to Tulsa World.

The painting also preceded the arrival of President Donald Trump in the city for a campaign rally at the BOK Center, with Briana Shea, one of the activists who had worked overnight to create it, stating she thought it brought healing to the community. However, the sign prompted a group of local Republicans to seek permission from the city to paint a "Back the Blue" sign on a city street. This eventually led city councilors to a meeting on Wednesday, July 29, when they determined that the legal obstacles and practical implications of allowing the "Black Lives Matter" mural did not make for good public policy.

A Black lives Matter mural that was painted on 5th Avenue is seen directly in front of Trump Tower on July 13, 2020, in New York City. In a tweet, President Trump called the mural a "symbol of hate" and said that it would be "denigrating this luxury Avenue" (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

Senior Assistant City Attorney Mark Swiney told the councilors that "there really isn’t anything in our laws that make a street into a canvas to convey a message or to essentially make a sign out of a street surface."

City Attorney David O'Meilia similarly said that if councilors allowed one message, they would have to allow them all. He argued that, if the BLM sign were allowed to stay up, the city could face arguments in court that it had been tacitly approved. City Traffic Engineer Kurt Kraft presented a similar situation from 2018 when the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center on Fourth Street wanted to paint crosswalks in the area in rainbow colors. He said the application was rejected because the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) regulations prohibit decorative crosswalks because it compromises safety, and that the BLM mural presented similar concerns.

An aerial view of a Black Lives Matter mural on East Pine Street near Cal Anderson Park is seen during ongoing Black Lives Matter events in the so-called "CHOP," an area that protesters have called both the "Capitol Hill Occupied Protest" and the "Capitol Hill Organized Protest, on June 14, 2020, in Seattle, Washington. Black Lives Matter protesters have continued demonstrating in what was first referred to as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, which encompasses several blocks around the Seattle Police Departments vacated East Precinct (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

"If there is an accident, it opens the city to liability if we consciously violate the rules because it is codified in state and federal law," he said, adding that he was told not to remove it until the City Council could meet with the Mayor's Office and discuss how to move forward.

Councilor Connie Dodson insisted she had no problems with the mural but said allowing it to stay up would lead to a "slippery slope when it comes to that kind of activity." She also asked the City Attorney’s Office to draft an ordinance "that would prohibit this type of free speech on our sidewalks and streets so that it is clear and then we don’t have the ambiguity anymore."

But Tulsa is not the first city to decide to do away with BLM murals on its streets. MEA WorldWide previously reported how Redwood City in California quietly washed away a painting, possibly in a bid to avoid an ideological confrontation like Tulsa.

However, in that case, Redwood City resident Dan Pease had gotten permission from city officials to paint the sign as part of a Fourth of July public art celebration, with the city even providing him with the yellow poster board paint he needed for the project. But on July 16, less than two weeks later, officials quietly washed it away after being contacted by real estate attorney Maria Rutenberg, who told them she wanted to paint a 'MAGA 2020' sign because the street was ruled to be a public forum.