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Pictured is a Black Lives Matter street mural outside of Yates High School in Houston’s Third Ward on Oct. 15, 2025.
More than a week after the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) ordered cities and counties remove decorative art and messaging from roadways, most officials turned their immediate attention to the rainbow crosswalks in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood. Other landmarks are at risk of removal as well.
TxDOT’s initial memo, obtained by Houston Public Media, specifically calls for the removal of “pavement markings such as decorative crosswalks, murals, or markings conveying artwork or other messages … on travel lanes, shoulders, intersections, and crosswalks unless they serve a direct traffic control or safety function. This prohibition includes the use of symbols, flags, or other markings conveying any message or communications.”
Michael Adkison/Houston Public Media
A Black Lives Matter mural outside of Yates High School in the Third Ward on Oct. 15, 2025.
That wording has prompted confusion, even among local elected officials, as to what’s covered under the seemingly blanket ban on non-traffic roadway landmarks.
“What’s going to happen to the murals on our streets that honor George Floyd, or even the basic paw prints that are painted that [former] Mayor [Annise] Parker had put in leading up to BARC?” Houston City Council member Abbie Kamin, referring to the city’s animal shelter, said during a council meeting on Wednesday. “There are examples throughout the city, and if we do not find ways as a city to take a stand, what’s next?”
In nearby Galveston, a sign that reads “Welcome to Galveston The birthplace of Juneteenth” could be on the chopping block as well. A spokesperson for the city confirmed Thursday that city officials had requested TxDOT’s input on whether or not the sign — commemorating the federal holiday that celebrates the end of slavery — was in compliance with the state’s order.
Michael Adkison/Houston Public Media
A mural reading “Black Towns Matter” on Link Road in Independence Heights on Oct. 16, 2025.
A spokesperson for TxDOT did not immediately return a request for comment on the status of the Juneteenth sign.
Galveston already has removed its own rainbow crosswalks after TxDOT’s order, a spokesperson confirmed.
Some other Houston-area landmarks could also be at risk of removal. Foremost among them is a “Black Lives Matter” mural painted in front of Jack Yates High School, where George Floyd attended school. Floyd was murdered in 2020 by a Minneapolis police officer, which sparked civil unrest across the country as well as renewed conversations about race relations.
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The mural, which spans two blocks of Alabama Street, was still outside the Yates campus as of Wednesday.
In Houston’s Independence Heights neighborhood, which in 1915 became the first municipality in Texas to be incorporated by African Americans, another road mural on Link Road reads “Black Towns Matter.” That mural, painted in 2020, was still in place as of Thursday.
At the intersection of Milam and Alabama in Midtown, a public art mural called “Welcome Home” is painted on the underpass of Spur 527, in collaboration with HueMan:Shelter. The mural was dedicated to humanizing the homeless and shows the colors of the rainbow — a common symbol for the LGBTQ+ community — along the wall of the bridge.
The “Welcome Home” mural by Marlon Hall and HueMan:Shelter on the underpass at Milam and Alabama on Oct. 15, 2025.
Houston Public Media also sought clarity from TxDOT on the hierarchy for determining which cities are and are not in compliance. Previously, when asked about these three specific Houston-area murals and artworks, a spokesperson for TxDOT directed the questions to “the appropriate city or jurisdiction.”
RELATED: The rainbow crosswalks in Houston have been removed. Federal guidelines could inhibit their return
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO), which helmed the removal, repainting and subsequent planned removal of Montrose’s rainbow crosswalks, told Houston Public Media that its division was only involved to the extent that the intersection of Westheimer Road and Taft Street, where the rainbow crosswalks were installed in 2017, was a part of the BOOST project to repair pavement along Westheimer.
Spokespeople for the city of Houston and its public works department did not respond to requests for comment.