As Washingtonians continue to fight federal attacks against the District’s already limited home rule, and now navigate the challenging effects of the government shutdown, murals have become ways of highlighting and preserving D.C. culture.
The walls of Washington speak, telling the truth about who this city really is.
From U Street to Shaw, The Wharf to Anacostia, the District’s murals are not mere paintings, but rise as acts of defiance and prayer.
“Every brushstroke seems like a protest,” Arihanna Khan, a Capitol Hill resident, said, quoting one muralist. “You can’t silence a mural. You can try, but it will still be there in the morning.”
In the Shaw neighborhood, where Black culture has long stood as the city’s soul, murals climb from brick and concrete like hymns. Duke Ellington gazes from his corner as if conducting the rhythm of a people who refuse to disappear.
A few blocks away, the mural on the side of Ben’s Chili Bowl tells a story of endurance. The building survived the 1968 riots and every wave of gentrification that followed. Its wall has carried faces from Barack and Michelle Obama to Harriet Tubman, Chuck Brown, and Prince.
“Ben’s isn’t just a restaurant,” said Millie Carter, a lifelong Shaw resident. “I feel it’s what D.C. is all about and the murals speak to the fact that we belong here. It says to me that Donald Trump cannot erase our history.”
The African American Civil War Memorial bears the names of more than 200,000 Black soldiers who fought for a country that refused to see them. Their courage lives on in paint, color, and form.
Further, the Howard Theatre still stands as a cathedral of sound and survival. Its nearby murals honor the artists who built D.C.’s identity, such as Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown and Marian Anderson.
Down by The Wharf, D.C.’s story continues.
Artist Shawn Perkins created a visual hymn through his murals of Benjamin Banneker, Marvin Gaye, and the Rev. Anthony Bowen. Banneker, the mathematician who helped design the capital, looks out over a waterfront that once excluded people like him. Gaye, a native son of Washington, still sings through color, asking the same question he posed decades ago, “What’s Going On?” Bowen, who founded one of the first Black YMCA chapters in the country, reminds all who pass that faith without service is empty.
“Art is not just in museums in D.C.,” Yvonne Z. Smith wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “We have some of the most expressive murals.”
While Black Lives Matter Plaza Is Gone, New Murals Arise
Earlier this year, the mural that once defined defiance, the Black Lives Matter lettering near the White House, was destroyed. Mayor Muriel Bowser, under pressure from President Donald Trump, ordered its removal.
While the act was meant to silence, and the plaza is gone, the message survives on every wall that still breathes truth.
In Anacostia, where policy and poverty have long conspired against hope, new murals rise as declarations of worth. They honor the mothers who hold families together, the children who dream, and the ancestors who built the city’s foundation.
“You walk past those murals and you feel free. You feel strengthened,” said Jamal Washington, a Southeast resident and self-described community advocate. “When I look at them, I see us. I see everything Trump is trying to take away.”
Murals in Washington are more than art.
When the sun falls behind U Street and the walls begin to glow under the streetlights, passersby can almost hear them breathe. The colors move like voices carried by wind, whispering the same promise to everyone who will listen.
“We’re still here and we know that they want us gone — in a detention center, on a boat, or in chains,” said Elaine Carter. “But guess what? We’re not going anywhere.”