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City to paint Black Lives Matter street mural in Queens

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Photo by Todd Maisel

The city will be painting a Black Lives Matter street mural in Jamaica, Queens, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Friday, June 19.

The Queens street mural, one of five coming to all the boroughs, will be located at 153rd Street between Jamaica Avenue and Archer Avenue. The street mural follows the trend set in Washington, D.C., and, most recently, in Brooklyn’s Fulton Street where a huge, yellow painting of the phrase “Black Lives Matter” stretched across a street.

When asked when the mural will be painted, a spokesperson at the mayor’s office said they don’t have a set date yet, but anticipate it’ll be in next few weeks.

The announcement of the mural came during de Blasio’s daily press briefings on Friday, where he announced that Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States, will be a city and school holiday starting next year.

He also announced the new Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission (RRC), which the city established to promote social learning, collective introspection and policy action.

“New York City is the safest big city in America with crime at all-time lows, yet communities of color bear the brunt of crime and incarceration,” said de Blasio. “Racism has been a pervasive and consequential force throughout the city’s history and we cannot go back to the status quo. We must use the past to inform and inspire the present, to promote the dignity and well-being of all New Yorkers, and their full inclusion in the life of our city.”