The art community is now sending out surveys to business owners this week to try and catalog the artwork, the first step towards preserving the murals before they end up in the trash.
"We’ve got a little window of time but not that big a window of time, only because some of the barricades are coming down," said Randolph Belle, spokesman for Black Cultural Zone, one of several groups working to preserve the art.
"The murals are really part of a movement and they were created to help inspire protests and conversation," said the museum’s Executive Director Lori Fogarty. "And I think what we want to ensure is that yes, they could be artifacts of this moment to really tell a history, but they could also be a very important platform for dialogue."
The challenge is preserving the energy and inspiration of the grassroots installation.