Black Lives Matter street art is showing up in cities across the US. Here’s a look

It started in Washington, D.C., where artists painted the words “Black Lives Matter” Friday in bright yellow paint on a street leading to the White House.

Since then, it’s morphed into a countrywide form of expression, as many are taking to the streets to convey key phrases related to the the movement following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, black people killed this year.

Taylor died in March after Louisville police officers entered her home with a search warrant and shot her; Arbery was fatally shot after police say two white men “suspected him in a rash of break-ins” while he was jogging February in Glynn County, Georgia; and Floyd died in May after a now-fired Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for more than 8 minutes, setting off worldwide protests.

The phrase “End Racism Now” has been painted in 20-foot tall text in Raleigh, according to the News & Observer. The initial hope was to paint the words on a road leading up to the Confederate monuments on the state Capitol grounds, but the phrase was instead painted near the Contemporary Art Museum.

“We did it. And it’s wonderful. And we feel really good about it. Our voices are being heard, but it’s not enough,” Charman Driver, who led the effort, told the News & Observer. “We want to paint that block, but what we want ultimately is for those statues to be removed.”

Nearly 200 volunteers in Sacramento helped artist Demetris “BAMR” Washington paint “Black Lives Matter” on the city’s Capitol Mall, according to the Sacramento Bee. The artist told the Bee he wanted to get the message across in a positive way.

Shira Lane, CEO of The Atrium, added that it was “beautiful to see the city coming together and showing love.

“There is a lot of love in this city,” she told the Bee. “There has been a lot of violence, and that’s not what we’re about.”

The same phrase was painted in a three-block stretch in Oakland, where hundreds of volunteers used 75 gallons of yellow paint to color the 25-foot high letters, according to KCBS.

Poncho Kachingwe, organizer of the painting effort, commended the volunteers and all those who donated.

“There’s so much pizza that was dropped off, I don’t even know where it came from. No clue where it came from, I was like, ‘why is all this food here all of a sudden?’” Kachingwe told KCBS. “Water, people were bringing paintbrushes, people were bringing hand sanitizers, masks, everything. It’s actually been more than could ever have been expected.”

The ideas for some of the street art may have been inspired by the work done in D.C., which painted the message Friday morning.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser tweeted the area where the phrase was painted is now called Black Lives Matter Plaza. Photos show protesters painting “Defund The Police” next to it after Black Lives Matter DC called the painting “performative distraction from real policy changes” that “appease(s) white liberals while ignoring our demands.”