Protesters take to the streets over desecration of African-American cemetery in Bethesda (Video+Photos)

The controversy over how to address an African-American cemetery in the Westbard area of Bethesda that was desecrated and then buried in the late 1960s, boiled over into the streets yesterday. In yet another sign of how the Montgomery County Council and Planning Board seem to now be at war with their own constituents, this was only the second matter to result in citizens marching against Montgomery County officials in my lifetime (compared to the fairly common union protests). In this case, members of the Macedonia Baptist Church and their supporters are asking the Planning Board to not act on the Equity One sketch plan that envisions a 6-story building and parking garage on top of the cemetery.

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Despite the request of the church to delay the sketch plan review until a cemetery delineation can be carried out, the Planning Board is going forward anyway. A youth leader at Macedonia Baptist said it was "disrespectful" to put parking over their buried ancestors.

Several community leaders, as well as nearby residents, stood and marched in solidarity with church members yesterday. "What a blessing it is to be in this righteous fight with all of you," said Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd of the River Road Unitarian Universalist Church. While Town of Somerset Mayor Jeffrey Slavin spoke, telling the crowd to "stay woke," the Montgomery County Council was nowhere to be found. Ed Amatetti, a Republican running for the Council in District 2 in 2018, was there, however.

Among the chants and musical selections employed during the march was a particularly appropriate one, "We Shall Not Be Moved." Considering that a developer can try to relocate graves under Maryland law, the title's defiance has a double meaning.

With a robust Montgomery County Police presence, marchers started off into the right westbound lane of River Road in front of the church, chanting anti-Equity One slogans. Officers did a great job of directing traffic and protesters, keeping everyone safe. At the Capital Crescent Trail bridge over River Road, officers shut down the whole state highway for several minutes to allow marchers to cross and reach what was once known as "Outlet Road." This was the route funeral processions would take from the church to the cemetery in decades past, and currently sits below the retaining wall at the rear of the McDonald's parking lot.

Once at the cemetery site, one of the two academics the church wants to represent them when Equity One's hired firm eventually begins a cemetery search, spoke. Dr. Rachel Watkins said the cemetery must be delineated "before any ground is further disturbed or touched." She also advocated having the community "embedded with the discovery process" of any delineation, as much as the developer would be.

Harvey Matthews, who lived in the black community on the site of today's Whole Foods Market, said he always took great pride in telling people he was "born in Bethesda," and "the first black kid to live in Kenwood." He had childhood friends who lived in Kenwood, which was separated from Matthews' property by the Willett Branch stream. Two sycamore trees that were planted out front when he was nine are still standing between the sidewalk and the Whole Foods parking lot.

Whole Foods sent word through the police that they would arrest any of us who entered their property during the protest. Nice.

Matthews recalled playing hide-and-seek and sledding in the cemetery, and doesn't understand why there is any skepticism by the County regarding its existence. "I don't know what game the County's playing," he said, "or how they're playing it." He said he would like there to be some physical memorial that his he, his children, and his grandchildren can visit to pay their respects.

"These Africans in the ground were somebody," said a representative of the Black is Back Coalition, a group organizing for peace, social justice and reparations. "Their presence and blood runs through all of us."

The weather cooperated greatly, with an occasional sprinkle near the end of the march. In a hopeful sign, the sun emerged as Rev. McDonald-Ladd gave a benediction at the close of the march.

Just before the end of the march, protesters paused at the site of Matthews' former home to pay their respects to his family. "I don't care what they say, Whole Foods, about arresting people," he declared. "I was here first."

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Commissioners are currently scheduled to take up the plan at their February 23 meeting. The Planning Department issued a statement in response to news of the plannned protest last week, in which it claimed that approval of the sketch plan would not close any aspect of delineating the cemetery. However, that legal question is not as clear-cut as the news release suggested, in regards to what authority and advantages the developer would hold with an approved sketch plan.

I was, frankly, astonished at the department's insistence that the sketch plan review would go forward. Given the department's never-FBI-investigated role in the Farm Road scandal, in which black landowners were cheated out of their property rights after the road that accessed their properties was "accidentally" deleted by the Planning Board - to the benefit of a development firm, the optics of the Board now thumbing their nose at a black church over desecration of a black cemetery are pretty horrendous. Good Lord.

But after attending yesterday's protest, I am now confident that the sketch plan review is going to be postponed. That's because leaders of the protest made clear that if the Planning Board goes ahead with the sketch plan review at its February 23 Planning Board meeting, they will "shut it down" through civil disobedience if needed. The scene of an African-American congregation shutting down a meeting, in which extremely-ambitious politicians like Casey Anderson and Natali Fani-Gonzalez would be siding with a multi-billion-dollar corporation over black constituents, would be a public relations disaster for the Montgomery County political cartel. They're not going to give us that photo op, folks.

To keep the pressure on, though, two more protests have been scheduled prior to the meeting:

1. Thursday, February 16, 2017 from 2:00-4:00 PM outside the Planning Headquarters at 8787 Georgia Avenue

2. Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 1:30 PM outside the Macedonia Baptist Church at 5119 River Road

How could this desecration, like the River Road black community itself, remain "secret" for so many decades? For some reason, Montgomery County never paid any attention, nor pursued the people responsible for this crime against humanity. As syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. said in his Washington Post book review of The Blood of Emmett Till yesterday, "when African-American lives are destroyed by white people, America has historically been reluctant to bring the perpetrators to account." Should it be surprising that this lack of consideration extends to the African-American dead, as well?

Protesters gather in
front of the
Macedonia Baptist Church

Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd of
the River Road
Unitarian Universalist Congregation was
among several representatives of local
organizations in attendance

A former pastor of
Macedonia Baptist Church
has said developers have
relentlessly tried to drive
the church off its land

Call and response
with an Equity One theme

The Kenwood, seen in
the background, was
constructed on land that
held some of the final
homes of the original
black community

Church trustee
Harvey Matthews (L) gets
protesters ready to march
onto River Road as
police begin to close lanes

The 850' telecommunications
tower was the site of the
River Road Colored School,
which Matthews attended

There were some emotional
moments at the site of
the cemetery

Equity One
security guards
were called in

Making the climb
to Westbard Avenue

Now on Westbard

Site of Matthews' former
home, taken by developers;
it is now a Whole Foods

Matthews recalls his
years living on this
property, standing next
to the sycamore trees (center)
his family planted when he was 9

Matthews is interviewed
after the march by
Jasmine Norwood of
DCW50 News