A block-long street art installation commemorating Sunday’s march in Hollywood denouncing racial injustice and supporting LGBTQ rights will remain painted across the boulevard as officials and community members discuss how to more permanently mark the event.
Workers originally started removing the painting — the words “All Black Lives Matter” in rainbow colors and the pale pink, blue and white of the transgender pride flag — Sunday night, but Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell intervened.
“Repairs will now be made so its powerful message can continue resonating from #Hollywood to the rest of the world,” he wrote Monday on Twitter.
O’Farrell — whose council district includes Hollywood — said he plans to work with the community and organizers on a more permanent memorial commemorating Sunday’s march.
The existing artwork was a collaboration between march organizers Black LGBTQ+ Activists for Change, or BLAC, and Trailer Park Group, a local entertainment marketing company, according to O’Farrell’s office.
The hope would be that a new permanent installation “becomes a symbol not just to the city, but to the world,” BLAC board members Gerald Garth and Brandon Anthony said in a statement.
Luckie Alexander, who helped design the painting between Highland Avenue and Orange Drive, said the piece “spoke to the intersections of being black, sexual orientation and gender identity that are included in this racial movement.”
“As a black trans man, our specific community has been continually overlooked and this gives me hope that we will continue to be heard here in Los Angeles,” Alexander said in a statement.
Along with supporting LGBTQ rights, the throngs of demonstrators over the weekend added their voices to the growing chorus of calls for racial justice following the death of George Floyd — a Black man who died last month after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.
“We had a once-in-a-generation moment this weekend in Hollywood as tens of thousands gathered for a peaceful demonstration on one of the most recognizable boulevards in America,” O’Farrell said in a statement Monday. “We now have a chance to memorialize the movement in a meaningful way.”
Times staff writers Hailey Branson-Potts and Matt Stiles contributed to this report.
