Activist Group Takes Photos Under Kennedy Center Tarp — First Look After Trump’s Name Removed

AP Photo/Rahmat Gul

Hands Off The Arts, an activist group protesting the changes President Donald Trump’s administration has brought to the Kennedy Center, took photos behind the tarp hung on the building’s façade, providing the first good look after the president’s name was removed.

The controversy began shortly after Trump’s second inauguration, when he appointed himself to the board for the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. He added several of his allies to the board as well, who then named him chair. The new Trump-controlled board voted to change the name to add the president’s name, and the center’s website, social media, and other digital branding were updated to say “The Trump Kennedy Center” and his name was added to the building’s façade.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), a Kennedy Center board member whose involvement predated Trump’s interference, objected to the renaming. She filed a lawsuit in late December challenging the “illegal renaming,” arguing that “[b]ecause Congress named the center by statute, changing the Kennedy Center’s name requires an act of Congress.” She has been represented by a legal team led by Norm Eisen, along with the organization he co-founded, Democracy Defenders Action, and the Washington Litigation Group.

Last month, Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled in Beatty’s favor, ordering Trump’s name to be removed from the Kennedy Center by Friday, June 12.

Trump’s name was in fact removed, but not without some shenanigans. The work was delayed until after the midnight deadline and workers put up a large tarp that blocked the building’s name from view. Beatty has filed a motion objecting to the tarp as a “petty act of defiance,” among other issues.

The new photos showing what the building looks like behind the tarp were taken by Hands Off the Arts and provided to several media outlets, including The Washington Post and CNN, which independently verified the images.

“This is the picture the Trump administration does not want anyone to see, so it’s all the more important … that people have an opportunity to witness when they’re winning,” Mallory Miller, co-founder of Hands Off the Arts, told the Post.

Two of the photos shared by Hands Off the Arts are below.

Photo by Hands Off the Arts.

Photo by Hands Off the Arts

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