Historic African-American Cemetery At Heart of Westbard Protests

BETHESDA, MD — Members of a Bethesda church protested redevelopment plans for the Westbard area Sunday, and urged county officials to slow the process so studies can be done to determine if there are human remains buried there by the families of freed slaves over a century ago. Anecdotes from residents who grew up in the area near the Macedonia Baptist Church, 5119 River Road in Bethesda, say that a dozen bodies were either disturbed or covered by construction there in the 1960s.

Members of the church believe an existing Housing Opportunities Commission building and its parking lot cover grave sites of freed slaves' families who settled in the River Road area. Redevelopment planned by Equity One will further disturb the cemetery, which isn't well documented. Church members say official proceedings were supposed to wait for an archaeological team to perform radar studies of the site to look for human remains, but that hasn't happened, Marsha Coleman-Adebayo told Montgomery Community Media.

A Montgomery County Planning Board meeting scheduled for Feb. 23 is “a rush to approve the Equity One plan,” Coleman-Adebayo said.

Bill Brown, executive vice president of development for Equity One, said he has been meeting with the church since early December. He said Equity One is planning to contract with another company to conduct the ground radar studies.

Church members want the Montgomery County Planning Board to reschedule the Feb. 23 meeting on the Equity One sketch plan because they believe the property is a former African cemetery. They plan to take their protest to the offices of the Planning Board in Silver Spring on Feb. 16, and another rally is planned for Feb. 19 at the church.

According to Coleman-Adebayo, the former cemetery was paved over as a parking lot at a site that houses a Housing Opportunities Commission building.

Harvey Matthews, a trustee of the church, told Montgomery Community Media he played hide-and-seek in the cemetery as a child. Part of the Housing Opportunities Commission building and much of its parking lot covers the cemetery, he says.

»Photos courtesy of Montgomery Community Media/Sonya Burke