Following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, the nation erupted in marches and riots centered around our 400 year history of oppression and abuse of people of color, in particular Black Americans.

In Washington DC, the Black Lives Matter movement led voices demanding to be heard with peaceful rallies and efforts to confront overzealous policing. The President responded with increased militarization to quell the civic unrest, erecting a temporary fence first around Lafayette Square on the White House’s doorstep and then around the entire White House complex.

Within hours of the initial installation, protesters began filling this fence with signs, pictures, sayings, and other expressions of frustration and hope. Over the course of the following three days, the fence became a memorial, a public art installation, and a symbol of our struggle to end oppression of the Black community.

The U.S. Park Service has announced that they will begin removal of this temporary 1.7-mile chain link fence, trashing anything on or next to it. This would erase the symbolic public art support for this historic moment in the lives of Black Americans and all who are fighting against our country’s systemic racism.

When hundreds of thousands of women marched in cities around the world on January 21, 2017, many left the signs they carried at fences along the routes, propped up against buildings, or in overfilled trash cans. A group of Bostonians from Northeastern University collected over 1,000 signs and posters in an effort to preserve and study that moment in history.

“It’s important to catch something that is ephemeral ... a collective, public, graphic expression in an age where most of the rhetoric is online,” said Northeastern University professor Nathan Felde, an organizer of the project. “Appearing in public with a sign that says what you’re thinking is a pretty courageous move.”

The Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History already has a collection of artifacts related to political reform movements, from labor unions to anti war groups. This collection includes protest signs from previous marches on Washington. Today’s events are no less historic and demand the same respect and treatment.

The physical and digitized preservation of the Lafayette and White House fence signs and art is an important process in telling today’s story. We urge you to take charge of this public art so that future generations can be informed by the courage and inspiration of the movement leaders and ordinary Americans at this critical moment in U.S. and African American history.