In Bethesda, Maryland—one of America’s most affluent communities—some of its residents live atop and park their cars on a Black American cemetery that has existed for more than a century.
For decades, the white residents of the area were largely unaware of the cemetery. Yet despite its existence being known today, the city government seems to prefer the truth to remain buried so that it can sell the land, including the remains of Black Americans, to developers for more than $50 million.
A cemetery that was more than a cemetery
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In 1911, the descendants of formerly enslaved Marylanders built Moses Macedonia African Cemetery, and ever since it had been a vital piece in Bethesda’s predominantly Black community along River Road.
“The community was a great place to live during this time. We were a big happy community. Everybody loving everybody,” said Harvey Matthews, who grew up on River Road in the 1950s.
Matthews has fond memories playing hide and seek at Moses Macedonia African Cemetery, which neighbored his childhood home and was not far from Macedonia Baptist Church, where he is still a member. But the threat of racial violence and terror was never far away.
For River Road’s Black community, the cemetery had also become its playground because the segregated public parks were off limits. Yet by the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Black community’s tranquility had been shattered by the growing presence of the Ku Klux Klan, and in just over a decade almost all traces of the Black community had been erased.
In response to the civil rights movement, the 1950s witnessed the third iteration of the KKK, but unlike the previous two iterations, this version of the KKK was decentralized and hyperlocal. Racist white Americans wore KKK hoods and robes, and terrorized Black communities without the need of a centralized organization. Despite the collapse of the KKK in the 1940s, it was reborn a decade later because its racist philosophy of terror still burned bright within segregationist Americans.
Matthews’ family moved away from River Road in 1959 to escape the KKK.
“Some of the same Montgomery County police officers, who were supposed to protect you, were the same people you saw when you got a peak at the Klansmen at night. We had no one to turn to for help,” said Matthews to The Daily Beast. “It was pure hell. You just had to live through it and pray that you would not lose your life.”
A few hundred people gather outside Macedonia Baptist Church in a rally and march to try to preserve African American heritage on Feb. 12, 2017 in Bethesda, MD.
Katherine Frey/The Washington Post via Getty ImagesIn the 1960s, after the intimidation from the KKK, various government policies that priced out Black residents, and unscrupulous developers that tricked Black people into giving up their land, the Black community on River Road had disappeared. Soon thereafter, white Marylanders moved in and built Westwood Towers apartments upon Moses Macedonia African Cemetery.
During construction, all of the gravestones were bulldozed, and then as the foundation for the apartment complex was being dug, body parts were discovered.
Since the developers had always known that they were building upon a cemetery, the discovery of deceased Black bodies was more of an inevitable nuisance, rather than a deterrent or justification to stop construction. Instead of relocating the bodies, or engaging in countless other humane actions, the developers decided to encapsulate the bodies in asphalt and build a parking lot upon them.
For more than 50 years, residents in a luxurious apartment complex—where rent can exceed $5,000 a month—have been parking their cars and living on top of a Black cemetery.
Fighting for their ancestors
“Right now, every day. Cars are parking on top of those bodies,” Steven Lieberman, a partner at the law firm Rothwell, Figg, told The Daily Beast. “I think most people would agree that that’s a desecration.”
Lieberman is representing the descendants of those buried in the Moses Macedonia African Cemetery and other community leaders (including Matthews) in a lawsuit against the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC) over control of the land.
Additionally, his clients have also created a nonprofit called the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition (BACC) that has been raising awareness of this American atrocity and fighting to preserve the bodies of their ancestors.
In August 2021, on behalf of his plaintiffs, Lieberman filed a complaint in the Maryland circuit court to compel the HOC to comply with Maryland laws and not sell Westwood Towers to developers. Those Maryland laws require land owners—prior to selling the land of a cemetery or burial ground—must get approval from the court to do so. This approval process normally constitutes hearing the perspectives of the representatives of the deceased, and then the court determines a fair remedy—which can include blocking the sale.
In this case, the HOC attempted to ignore the statute and sell the cemetery to the highest bidder. In the summer of 2021, the HOC accepted a bid of $51 million from Charger Ventures LLC, and expected to complete the sale as early September 2021, prior to Lieberman and BACC’s intervention.
On Oct. 25, 2021, Circuit Court Judge Karla N. Smith upheld the preliminary injunction to stop the sale, but the HOC appealed the decision and on Oct. 6, 2022, the HOC presented its case before a three-judge panel at the Maryland Court of Special Appeals for overturning the judge’s decision and selling the property. A decision is expected to be announced in the coming months.
An apartment building soars over a parking lot, believed to have been built over an African American cemetery, in Bethesda, MD on Jan. 27, 2017. Historians and activists fear that the area’s history is literally being paved over by rampant development.
Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images“For us, justice is that the land is transferred back to the descendent community and that the land would be used to build a museum and sacred space,” Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, the president of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition, told The Daily Beast. “[The museum and sacred space] would be used for teaching future generations about both the genocide and erasure of the community and its culture, and the theft of land on River Road; and also the culture, history, accomplishments, and significance of the River Road community.”
In her 2021 decision, Judge Smith stated that “The Court cannot ignore that the Plaintiffs, African Americans, are seeking to preserve the memory of their relatives and those with whom they share a cultural affiliation. Nor can the Court ignore that as early as the 1930s when construction began in the River Road community, the deceased have been forgotten, forsaken, and their final resting places destroyed or, at a minimum, desecrated.”
Following Judge Smith’s decision, Charger Ventures LLC canceled its plans to purchase Westwood Towers because the deal could not be completed at the agreed upon time. However, they told the Bethesda Beat in November 2021 that “Charger continues to express its strong interest in resuming negotiations to purchase the property.”
According to Lieberman, the HOC is making an “incredibly cruel” argument in this case because they are claiming that due to the lack of gravestones or other documentation, the descendants cannot prove that their ancestors are buried there.
Yet even if the descendants could prove that their ancestors are in the cemetery, the HOC is also arguing that the descendants cannot prove that they are buried on the parcel of land that became the parking lot for Westwood Towers and, instead, their remains could reside on the adjacent properties that include a Starbucks, a Giant Food grocery store, a shopping mall, and a Whole Foods.
In essence, the HOC is attempting to use the desecration of Black bodies and graves from the past, as a justification for desecrating them in the present.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo holds a protest sign during a meeting of Montgomery County Planning Board meeting in Silver Spring, MD on Feb. 16, 2017.
Bill Turque/The Washington Post via Getty ImagesBased on this barbarous argument, it is possible that this year a Maryland court may approve the sale of land housing the remains of hundreds of Black Americans in the name of economic growth, gentrification, and profit at the expense of Maryland’s Black residents and their ancestors.
But this court case only tells a fraction of the story of the Black residents of River Road, and the generational erasure of Black life in the name of white wealth.
Maryland still won’t reckon with its slavery shame
In the 1800s, River Road was mostly plantations, and the land was worked by enslaved Africans. By 1860, nearly 13 percent of Maryland’s population was enslaved.
Despite being a slaveholding state, Maryland sided with the Union during the Civil War, while continuing to practice slavery. In fact, since the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 specifically referred to the Confederate states, the law did not take effect in Maryland. In 1864, Maryland held a constitutional convention, and abolished slavery in their new constitution.
During the 1800s, the plantation owners along River Road created a mass grave where all of them would dispose of the bodies of enslaved Africans. The location of this mass grave is not far from Westwood Towers and, in 2020, it was sold to a developer to create a self-storage facility. Currently, it is a large open pit next to a McDonald’s, and both the government and developers claim to have not found any human remains. But BACC members insist they have proof that their ancestors are buried there, and that many of the remains that have been found in this mass grave are those of children.
River Road continues to tell the story of the normalized displacement, terror, desecration, and erasure that often befalls America’s Black community in the name of white wealth.
From chattel slavery to Jim Crow and into the present, the struggle to preserve Black life and culture when confronted by white wealth and business development continues to plague American society. River Road’s Black community tells the story of this struggle and the terror inflicted upon Black Americans, yet still today some Marylanders would prefer to erase this history—and keep business going as usual, while Black families are re-traumatized.
“My mom, my dad, my grandparents, and the ones who have gone on to glory before me, they can’t stand up there. They fought their fight back then. I’m still here. I’m still alive. I have my health and strength,” said Matthews. “I will fight like hell, as long as I have breath in my body, until this situation is resolved.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to both Charter Ventures LLC and the Maryland HOC for comment. As of publication, neither party has responded.
