SELAH -- The City of Selah has removed a piece of Black Lives Matter chalk art, calling it graffiti, but some who created it say if it was a picture of anything else, it would have been left alone.

A group of kids got together to make a piece of chalk art down Lacey Avenue in Selah, at a dead end - this after the city had removed the original piece done by the young people who live down that street.

That artwork saying Black Lives Matter with a list of black people killed at the hands of police was removed for a third time Thursday morning after it was redone twice. 

The people who made the art say they're being targeted because of what the message is saying, and if it had said anything else, it might not have been removed.

"It's not about the chalk art. It's the message. They don't like the message," says Lisa Draney. 

She took her kids down there to work on the art. 

"I want to teach them to recognize that if they are in a position to be able to make a difference or to support someone else that they should do that," says Draney. 

City administrator Don Wayman says they're just following the municipal ordinance, and responded to a couple of complaints from neighbors.

He says they would have gotten rid of it no matter what the message was, also saying it's far different than just some hopscotch sidewalk chalk. 

The municipal code doesn't say anything about chalk specifically

"It all comes down to sort of a misunderstanding of what the movement is all about," says Draney. 

Action news spoke with several neighbors, many of them saying they loved the art, and were disappointed to see it gone.

"I think anyone would look at that and could see that it was art, and that it was demonstrating our helplessness as as society in the face of what's going on with the police and with what's going on with brutality against people, the inequities, the injustices that are out there. We need to definitely try to do something" says Julie Swedin, who lives right near wear the chalk art was done. 

One neighbor says he wasn't a fan, but says he didn't call to complain.

Draney says she thinks its a waste of city resources to bring a crew out, and says they could have just waited for rain to wash it away.

"I think the city of Selah if they were responsible for treating this as graffiti, they need to rethink what they consider graffiti," says Swedin. 

Rather than likening the movement to communism, Draney says she wished city officials would just go out and talk to people about why they're involved.

Selah School District officials gave the okay for them use Selah Middle School as a place to display their message-  a place where the city can't remove it.

About 150 people showed up Thursday evening. Instead of saying Black Lives Matter, the artwork read "Racial equality, we care about black lives." 

20-year-old Gabriel Fabian started the artwork down his street, and says he doesn't get why the Black Lives Matter piece caused so much controversy, but hopes people won't have a problem with this message. 

"To me, honestly how I feel is just any racism should not be a debate. Everybody should just be on the same term," says _ . "To me there's just a right answer."

He says it's good to see so many young people out supporting the movement. 

"These kids are going to grow up, to be able to be very open about everyone, and not judge people by the color of their skin, and even though their friends' parents might think these kids shouldn't be out here, but for me it is a good thing, because when they do get older they're going to know that this is the right direction to be going in," says Fabian.