Arlington Work Crews Remove Chalk Messages About Racial Equality

ARLINGTON, VA — Dozens of Arlington neighbors and residents have visited the home of Alex and Yavaal Hampton in the Boulevard Manor neighborhood in the last two days.

They were there to show support for the family, whose chalk messages in support of Black Lives Matter and racial equality were erased by Arlington County work crews Friday morning.

Alex and Yvaal Hampton have lived in their house since December 2018. Yvaal Hampton and her daughter used chalk on their driveway and in the street to a write a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. and other messages.

After a complaint from a neighbor, work crews arrived around 8 a.m. on Friday to remove the chalk art from the street, sidewalk, and apron of the driveway. The workers did not remove the art from the part of the driveway owned by the Hamptons.

“Resources were used by Arlington County to wash off a message in support of the issue of racial equality,” Yvaal Hampton said. “Wasting resources to do that was unnecessary.”

Just a week earlier, a neighbor’s 12-year-old daughter had written Black Lives Matter in the middle of the street. One of their neighbors then walked down and removed the message with dish soap and a broom.

“We watched her do it. And we didn’t think that was right,” Alex Hampton said, adding the girl writes in chalk in the street all the time. For Memorial Day, she drew the American flag in the middle of the street. None of the neighbors erased the flag, he said.

In response to the chalk Black Lives Matter message being erased, the Hamptons decided to put a message in their driveway, so it couldn't be erased.

When the workers arrived Friday morning, they realized it was chalk, Yvaal Hampton said. But they still had to follow the order of removal because of the anonymous complaint that had been filed with the county that it was graffiti.

At first, the couple perceived the work crew's actions as a message of negativity, but the outpouring of support from the community has left them feeling overwhelmingly positive.

“It makes me feel good, because it’s showing a sense of community,” Yvaal Hampton said. “We’ve had so many people who want to let us know they support us and to make sure we feel welcome.”

After the incident blew up on social media and in the local press, Arlington County issued an apology Friday night:

We apologize for this unfortunate situation, particularly on such an important day, Juneteenth. Our crews were following policy to remove markings, regardless of the message, on County right-of-way in response to a received complaint. None of the markings were removed from private property.

We understand the deep feelings that are present in the community. Our mission is to deliver public services based on established policies in a consistent manner. We’re reviewing our policy. Our crews take great pride in keeping Arlington clean and safe.

About a dozen people were outside the Hampton's home just before noon on Saturday. The crowd thinned out when it began to rain.

The Hampton family expects they will continue to receive support with regular chalk messages on the street and expressed satisfaction that people in other parts of Arlington are writing Black Lives Matter messages on their own streets and sidewalks in solidarity with what Arlington County did to them.

A neighbor of the Hamptons told Patch that Arlington County needs to review how it handles complaints about issues like this. If the neighbor had spoken with the Hampton family about the writing instead of complaining to the county, the issue could have easily been mitigated, the neighbor said.

Another neighbor told Patch that residents have a right to complain about markings or graffiti on public property.

“Some people may want to go and express themselves in chalk on a public street, while other members of the public also have the right to say, ‘I don’t want markings here,’” the neighbor said, adding the person who called in the report may have agreed with the message but simply doesn’t like markings in the street.

Patch Editor Mark Hand helped with the reporting of this story.