City authorities dismantled the protective fencing around the historic St. John’s Church next door to the White House on Monday, roughly nine months after it was first erected.
Downtown Washington, D.C., has been a maze of security fencing since January, but barriers surrounding the White House and St. John’s Church have persisted since Black Lives Matter riots and protests in early 2020. Rioters set fire to the church in May 2020, and former President Donald Trump used the site to make a political statement rebuking the rioters the following day. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE VIDEOS: Counter-Protesters Target Trump Supporters After ‘Million MAGA March’ As Violence Breaks Out In Downtown DC)
They’re taking down the fencing around St Johns church near the White House pic.twitter.com/GHpf8La0F1
— Steve Holland (@steveholland1) March 1, 2021
US President Donald Trump walks back to the White House escorted by the Secret Service after appearing outside of St John’s Episcopal church across Lafayette Park in Washington, DC on June 1, 2020. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
The fencing was put up with the hesitant consent of church leaders. It was reportedly scheduled to be dismantled at the end of August 2020, but continued protests kept the barrier around.
Lafayette Square, which connects the White House and St. John’s Church, spent most of 2020 surrounded by fencing. Protesters took over the area and dubbed it “Black Lives Matter Plaza” and held both violent and nonviolent demonstrations there.
Every sitting U.S. President — except for President Joe Biden, who has yet to make the trip — has attended at least one service at the historic church since it was built in 1816.
The dismantling of the barrier comes as part of a larger wind-down of security measures in Washington since their peak between the Trump supporters storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. Around 25,000 national guard troops have been deployed to the city in recent weeks, erecting miles of fencing.