Historic black cemetery buried under the parking lot at the center of a legal dispute

In the shadow of a 15-story apartment complex overlooking a Washington, DC suburb, an asphalt parking lot is at the heart of a development conflict.

The dispute is over what community members in Montgomery County, Maryland say they are hiding underneath: potentially hundreds of bodies of freed slaves and their descendants, buried in what was once an early graveyard. of the 20th century.

“These are people who were so oppressed and so rejected and so disrespectful in life, and now, even in death, they suffer the same fate,” said Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, president of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition, who was formed in 2019 and whose members seek to preserve what is known as the African Cemetery of Moses.

A lawsuit filed last month by the coalition aims to block the county’s pending $ 50 million sale of the apartment complex’s property, Westwood Tower, to investment firm Charger Ventures. The lawsuit alleges that the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission violates state law by not obtaining court approval for the sale, which is required when cemetery ownership is involved.

The coalition was victorious this month when a Montgomery County judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the sale at least until Monday, when another hearing is scheduled. A judge will decide whether to grant an injunction, which would further prevent the sale until the lawsuit is resolved. Otherwise, the case could go ahead.

It is not clear what might become of the parking lot ownership itself. Steven Lieberman, a coalition lawyer, told the judge during this month’s hearing that he believes a developer might end up exploiting the site.

“The developer is not buying this property to leave parking in place,” Lieberman said, according to a transcript. “He’s not buying this property to build a museum.”

The Housing Opportunities Commission declined to comment. Charger Ventures did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The frictions in predominantly white Montgomery County and one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, is just one example of a larger nationwide effort to investigate and preserve historic Black Tombs, many of which are in danger of being forgotten or destroyed – if discovered at all – said Lynn Rainville, anthropologist and director of institutional history and museums at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

The sites are in danger for a variety of reasons, she said – development, a lack of historical record keeping, no political will to save them or even climate change.

“While this issue may not be at the top of people’s list because we have to focus on the living, it shows that systemic racism permeates everything,” Rainville said, “from birth to death and at funerals “.

“We have lost a piece of our history”

On a recent afternoon this month, they sang spirituals, beat African drums and paraded with signs: “Black Lives Matter in Life and in Death”.

Regular protests around Westwood Tower have drawn dozens of Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition members and supporters.

“What happened to respect for the sacred land? asked Montani Wallace, who said her late husband had a relative buried in Moses cemetery. “As a family, we have lost a piece of our history and our ancestral bond.”

The cemetery is what remains of a historic black community in the River Road enclave in Bethesda. The chapter of a black fraternal society, White’s Tabernacle No. 39, purchased the 1 acre parcel in 1911.

The chapter had operated a cemetery, which historical records indicate included around 200 graves, and members planned to move them to its new property. Many of those buried in Moses cemetery have been described as freed slaves and people who once worked on the area’s farms and tobacco plantations before the Civil War.

In 1958, as black families along River Road were crowded out by development, White’s Tabernacle sold ownership of the cemetery. Part of the land became the parking lot for the Westwood Tower, built in 1968.

While the records of what was done at the graves are murky, people remembered stories of construction workers digging up bones and dumping the remains tens of meters away near a storm sewer.

For decades, the old cemetery site has been lost to history. In 2016, the Macedonian Baptist Church, the “only surviving cultural institution” of the local black community, launched an advocacy campaign to commemorate the plot, according to a landmark 2018 report.

While Lieberman said no one had used radar equipment or excavated the terrain to determine the number of graves, there is enough evidence in the records to indicate the existence of bodies, believing there are as many as ‘to 500.

During this month’s hearing, Frederick A. Douglas, an attorney for the Housing Opportunities Commission, questioned the coalition’s urgency to stop a sale and the validity of historical evidence.

He mocked the coalition’s message: “” I have 500 graves under this parking lot, and they’re going to be desecrated by this evil developer and HOC, this entity that does things in the dark at night.

“To say that HOC is pursuing this nastiness by selling this particular property that has graves… is a bit too much,” Douglas added.

The coalition urged Montgomery County executive Marc Elrich, a Democrat, to stop the sale.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Elrich had held meetings at the Moses cemetery with the community. He said he would welcome further discussions and called on county park and planning officials to fully engage with residents.

But his hands are tied, he says, because he does not have the power to set the terms of a sale. He would favor an independent assessment to accurately record what lies beneath the earth, which he believes should be commemorated.

“There is a long history of destroying black history and destroying the remnants of their culture and memory,” Elrich said. “Getting it right is important.”

“A metaphor for the larger narrative”

Archaeologists and community groups across the country are undertaking similar preservation efforts.

Unmarked black graves have been discovered in places like Elizabeth, New Jersey; Clearwater, Florida; and Clemson, South Carolina. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, bodies have been exhumed in the past year, potentially linked to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, one of the worst episodes of racial violence in U.S. history.

It remains difficult to determine the exact number of these sites.

Rainville said for every known white cemetery there should be one for African Americans as well. But the numbers are not equal, and research indicates that cemeteries have been lost due to highway expansion and other projects.

“There are no rules on how a property is to be preserved,” she said, although federal laws today help ensure that human remains found are not desecrated.

Some academics have called for federal protection of historic black burial sites modeled on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act 1990, which states that Indigenous human remains and burial objects “shall at all times be treated with dignity and respect ”.

In December, the Senate passed bipartisan legislation to create a national network to account for and preserve African-American cemeteries. But a similar bill was held up in the House.

Reverend William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, which advocates for economic justice, lends his support in Montgomery County, where, he said, more conversations are needed to right the wrongs to black families and their ancestors.

“This cemetery is a metaphor for the larger narrative of land theft that is happening to black communities, indigenous communities, Latin American communities and poor white communities,” he said.

While Barber said developers could profit in Bethesda from properties that were once owned by blacks, full accounting must determine who benefited from them and what the cost of repayment to descendants would be.

“Developers have literally built their wealth on the graves of others,” said Barber. “Think about how ugly it is.”