George Floyd protests: who is Muriel Bowser, the ‘unbossed’ Washington mayor challenging Donald Trump?
- Bowser, who has sparred with Trump over his belligerent response to the unrest, renamed an area near the White House ‘Black Lives Matter Plaza’
- For his part, the president denounced her as 'incompetent'
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has drawn a battle line right up to the White House.
Bowser, one of seven black female mayors of America’s 100 largest cities, on Friday declared a small but symbolic patch of the US capital – a section of 16th Street bounded by a church on one side and Lafayette Square opposite the White House on the other – “Black Lives Matter Plaza.”
The Democratic mayor then had the District of Columbia’s departments of transport and public works paint giant yellow letters spelling “Black Lives Matter” followed by the city’s flag on the street spanning two city blocks leading to plaza. To finish, Bowser posted on Twitter a video taken from a nearby roof showing the White House overlooking the results.
“There are people who are craving to be heard and to be seen,” Bowser told a news conference, “and to have their humanity recognised, and we had the opportunity to send that message loud and clear on a very important street in our city.”
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Glynda Carr, president and chief executive of Higher Heights for America PAC, a political action committee dedicated to helping more liberal black women win elective office, said Bowser “showed the world that she leads, unbought and unbossed.” Carr’s organisation has never raised money for Bowser.
For his part, the Republican president denounced Bowser as “incompetent.”
Washington’s status as the seat of the federal government has not always been a comfortable fit for its residents or elected leaders. The city’s population of about 700,000 people – 46.4 per cent black and 45.6 per cent white, according to the Census Bureau – is politically liberal and heavily Democratic.
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Bowser has supported peaceful demonstrators while denouncing violence and looting. Trump has advocated a militarised response to civil unrest and even summoned a contingent of active-duty troops to Washington, though they were never deployed on the streets.
Bowser said she did not want any out-of-state military forces in Washington.
“There are no vicious dogs & ominous weapons. There is just a scared man. Afraid/alone. … I call upon our city and our nation to exercise great restraint even while this President continues to try to divide us,” Bowser wrote on Twitter.
A single mother to a toddler, Bowser is only the second woman to serve as Washington’s mayor and the first to win a second term in office.
Like other elected officials in Washington over the years, Bowser has advocated statehood for the District of Columbia, which has no voting members of Congress even as states with smaller populations have two senators and one member of the House of Representatives. Washington’s mayor was a federal appointee until the 1970s when the city was granted “home rule” and began electing its mayors.
Trump castigated her on Twitter on Friday.
“The incompetent Mayor of Washington, D.C., @MayorBowser, who’s budget is totally out of control and is constantly coming back to us for ‘handouts,’ is now fighting with the National Guard,” Trump wrote.