Christian protesters tear down signs from the H St. fence at Black Lives Matter Plaza.

Courtesy of Louisa Zhang

Local activists are calling for action after a group ripped down racial justice protest signs from the fence around Lafayette Square overnight.

Emotions ran high after the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court spilled into the streets in D.C. on Monday evening, outside the Court and eventually at Black Lives Matter Plaza.

Multiple videos posted on social media show a handful of protesters tearing the signs — which included messages calling for racial justice as well as opposition to the Trump presidency — following Barrett’s confirmation.

Yasmine Smith, 27, and her roommate Louisa Zhang, 31, biked downtown last night after Barrett was confirmed to observe the scene. Smith said  Black Lives Matter plaza was quiet at first, just after 9 p.m., with plaza regulars sitting around and a handful of people praying. But the mood escalated, Smith said, when a group of about 10 people arrived and started pulling down the signs.

“It was really hard to watch it,” Smith said. “It felt powerless, like we couldn’t do anything.”

Like the plaza itself, the fence along H St. NW has become a complicated space — an artistic testament to the breadth and depth of local participation in the Black Lives Matter movement, but also a marker of the pain and trauma of months of protests, which have remained largely peaceful but have at times drawn force from local police. Earlier in the summer, local organizers mobilized to ‘reclaim’ the space with more artwork after some was taken down to be preserved from the elements. Now it has drawn the opposition.

Signs at Black Lives Matter Plaza on Monday night before they were torn down. Courtesy of Louisa Zhang
Protest signs from Black Lives Matter Plaza piled on top of a trash can. Courtesy of Louisa Zhang

It was not immediately clear if the people who removed the signs were part of an organized group. On social media, eyewitnesses said the people were mostly pro-life Black Christians and Trump supporters.

Smith and Zhang said other onlookers identified one of the group as Bevelyn Beatty, a conservative Christian activist. On Beatty’s Instagram page, she posted videos taking credit for tearing down the signs.

“At Black Lives Matter Plaza, they had a bunch of signs hiding the White House up here,” she said in one. “We came, and we tore those disgusting signs down because we wanted to celebrate the fact that Amy was sworn in.”

In a video Smith shared on Twitter, a woman who appears to be Beatty tells Smith she supports Barrett’s confirmation because she’s anti-abortion.

“Amy Barrett got voted in,” she chants. “No more abortion for you, girl.”

“Get these demons off! Devils!” another woman, who is also Black, appears to say as she tears at the signs, in another onlooker video.

Smith said the woman she believes to be Beatty and the people tearing down signs were shouting.

“She was yelling about religion and Jesus and how all of this all those signs and things were fake. It was just really chaotic,” Smith told DCist/WAMU.

Smith and Zhang said the anger of the group ripping down the signs was contagious. Some white people who had been praying off to the side of the plaza began to participate in the destruction. Smith posted a video where she challenged two white women who appeared to be helping to dismantle the signs.

“She asked us to help,” one of the white women says, pointing to a Black woman who is holding a ripped sign.

“You think because she’s Black she’s a spokesperson for this plaza?” Smith asks in the video.

D.C. police were present at the plaza. In one video, they appear to be attempting to separate the people ripping down signs from others who objected to the practice. In another, one officer puts an arm out in front of a Black woman ripping the signs. “Stop, stop,” the officer says, “stop touching the signs.”

Smith and Zhang said police did little to keep the signs up and said officers told them they couldn’t intervene.

Photos on social media Tuesday morning showed the fence mostly bare.

https://twitter.com/CrushingBoo/status/1321086663234359300

Smith and Zhang said they left the plaza around 11 p.m. after most of the signs had come down. The two took a few large canvas prints depicting local protests with them. They hope to come back and hang them back up on the fence this week — and it’s likely that they won’t be alone in trying to replace the protest art on the fence.

“Trump supporters have torn down all the signs of those murdered by police on the fence on BLM Plaza here in DC,” tweeted Black Lives Matter D.C. “IT’S ON!”

Filed Under: 2020 BLM Protests, amy coney barrett, Black Lives Matter Plaza, racial justice hub,