Protesters cover new White House fence with posters and art about racial injustice

The additional fencing erected around the White House last week has quickly become a wall of protest signs and artwork memorializing George Floyd.

Workers built an 8-foot fence around the entrance to Lafayette Square early last week and then added new fencing barriers around the White House complex days later, which protesters saw as a blank canvas for an impromptu art gallery of protest signs and memorials to victims of police brutality and injustice.

AP

Video of an area of fencing filled with signs like "Fund the black community" and "Join the movement" was shared on Twitter by Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson on Sunday.

"The fence outside the White House has been converted to a crowd-sourced memorial wall — almost like an art gallery — to black men and women who lost their lives at the hands of police,'' she wrote. "Hundreds are strolling, looking, adding names and paintings and posters."

The peaceful protests in Washington, D.C., have continued along with hundreds of others in cities around the world following the death of Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died in the custody of the Minneapolis police.

The additional fencing was first put up days after a peaceful protest was broken up with tear gas by police before President Donald Trump walked across the street to St. John's Episcopal Church for a photo op.

Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, D.C., said at a press conference last week: "It's a sad commentary that the house and its inhabitants have to be walled off."

"We should want the White House opened up for people to be able to access it from all sides," she added.

The U.S. Secret Service said in a press release on June 5 that additional fencing had been added and the areas in and around the White House complex were being closed until June 10 "in an effort to maintain the necessary security measures surrounding the White House complex, while also allowing for peaceful demonstration."