Salt Lake City to discuss future of Fleet Block murals

SALT LAKE CITY — The future of the Fleet Block murals in downtown Salt Lake City is being discussed Thursday night in a city meeting with the families of those depicted in them.

The murals went up in response to alleged police brutality, but now are facing demolition. The question is, what happens to them now?

You have 29 murals in the Granary District memorializing people killed in confrontations with police, dating back to 2020 with George Floyd in Minnesota.

However, late last year, the Salt Lake City Council voted to rezone the area depicting them known as Fleet Block, citing environmental issues with the soil and instability of the buildings. So, what happens to the murals?

The matter is being discussed Thursday night in a meeting with the families of some of the local people memorialized, but Black Lives Matter Utah said no one quite knows what to expect.

“It’s definitely heavy on the heart, we’re walking into a space as a collective of mourning grieving families and we’re supposed to hopefully walk out with our heads up, and it’s just kind of unknown,” Rae Duckworth, operating chairperson of Black Lives Matter Utah, said.

A Salt Lake City spokesperson for Mayor Erin Mendenhall told KSL.com the murals are important to the city, and is “open to doing something, even if specifics haven’t yet publicly emerged.”

The families are expecting to learn more Thursday night at the meeting with the city. Although the message to attend was just sent out to the families, Black Lives Matter Utah is opening it up for anyone to come. So, if you want to be there Thursday night, and learn more about what happens to the murals, the city meeting is at the Sorensen Unity Center at 6:00 p.m.