The church is demanding reparations from Regency Centers, which sold the cemetery site to the Housing Opportunities Commission last month for $20 million, despite knowing there are bodies of the first generation of freed slaves buried there. PNC Bank provided the HOC with the financing for the cemetery site, and now finds itself embroiled in the controversy, which has become the biggest civil rights issue in Montgomery County. The County government has engaged in a campaign of racism and disrespect toward church officials, and the descendant community, throughout the scandal.
Cemetery advocates will press County Executive Ike Leggett at his Bethesda budget forum on February 6 at 7:00 PM at the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Regional Services Center, the HOC the next day on February 7 at 4:00 PM, the County Council on February 13, the Planning Board on February 22, and at a candidates forum on racial equity at Northwood High School on February 25 at 1:00 PM.
44 comments:
Thank God February is the shortest month.
How about the church demand reparations from the original seller in the 1950s instead?
"The church is demanding reparations from Regency Centers, which sold the cemetery site to the Housing Opportunities Commission last month for $20 million, despite knowing there are bodies of the first generation of freed slaves buried there."
That's incredibly dumb. If there any bodies there, they certainly weren't buried there during the years that Regency owned it. And Regency didn't build the parking lot.
That stock photo is nearly a year old.
"The County government has engaged in a campaign of racism"
Utter nonsense.
Let's be clear: Indeed, the County government has engaged in a campaign of racism.
If this was the Berliner or Reimer family plot, I can assure you no developer would be planning to build a parking garage on top of their graves and even go so far as to claim ownership of the bodies (as the corporate, out of town developer has asserted here).
In the county's eyes, and through their actions, the freed slaves and their descendants are less than equal.
Dyer's Army of Sockpuppets has reported for duty. LOL
It's the blaming part that gets me. Neither the Council nor Regency had anything to do with disturbing the ground and putting in a parking lot, yet they're the bad guys?
Who are you to claim knowledge of what the county's motivations are, "Boyce Bowles?"
If this was the Berliner or Reimer family plot it wouldn't have any Historical value.
You twist the facts, make over-reaching assumptions and then claim you're helping the cause? Until people stop finger-pointing, the cause will unfortunately languish.
And that's a damn shame.
A nice marker with the story of the settlement of freed slaves and mention of the site in the books and guides is something everyone could agree on.
The County's sanctuary policies for MS-13 have had devastating impact upon the County's African-American communities.
11:03: We need more than a marker to resolve this situation.
Maybe, maybe not. But that's not what I said. I'll repeat:
Until people stop finger-pointing, the cause will unfortunately languish.
11:52: I don't see the cause languishing at all. Incremental progress has been made through very effective actions. The garage has been temporarily delayed - they were going to start building it immediately just a few months ago. Now the pressure continues to be increased. Regency. PNC. These are companies with a national profile. I don't think they can afford to be associated with the racist policies of Montgomery County government.
If this was the Riemer or Berliner family plot and they cared about it, they wouldn't have sold the land.
Daily reminder: this land was owned by a Black benevolent society and they sold it in the 1950s. The sale was properly recorded in MoCo land records. Get mad at them for selling them if it's so important, not the latest owner.
1:05 PM They were likely swindled out of their land. Remember- this was the 50s. Think about the historical climate.
'Likely' is a guess. What do the records show? How much of our tax money is this costing?
1:44pm this is rare opportunity to make right an historic wrong. I believe the church and members of the original community.
"The members of the original community" have been dead for a century.
despite knowing there are bodies of the first generation of freed slaves buried there
#FakeNews alert!!
As of this moment, nobody can say for certain — one way or the other — whether there are human remains at the site. We know that there were at one time, but this is not the same as having certainty that there are now.
@1:28 Do you have any proof they were swindled out of their land?
I notice even the church supporters aren't saying that. Now, if they really were swindled, don't you think they'd be blasting that fact far and wide? Then they could take it up with the title insurer and the courts, but they haven't... perhaps because it was a legitimate sale?
12:06: You just imploded your credibility again:
I NEVER EVER blamed the victim for being in the road. You just completely made that up. That's defamation. What I did say was that the state of Virginia and the City of Charlottesville could be sued by the victim's family because they FAILED TO CLOSE OFF THE STREETS TO VEHICLE TRAFFIC, which is Crowd Safety 101. The incident would never have happened, had the city barricaded the streets where the protests took place.
The official CITY INDEPENDENT REPORT COMPLETELY BACKS UP WHAT I SAID, and was written by former U.S. Attorney Timothy Heaphy.
Secondly, I NEVER STATED "SUPPORT FOR THE STATUE." Criticizing the County for trying to whitewash its racist legacy of slavery and Confederate sympathy is NOT SUPPORT FOR THE STATUE.
You've been busted as a fraud, because this topic was never even discussed on here. It was that Natty Bo clown with the anonymous Bart Simpson Twitter profile - who has posted false, defamatory statements about me just like you just did - on my Rockville website. How would you know what I said on a different website? No wonder you had to post fake statements about what I said.
Is "Anna" actually "Natty Bo/Bart Simpson Twitter troll?" It sure looks like it.
This is just the latest attack by the MoCo political cartel. One tactic they've used against me since 2012 is to TURN MY STRENGTHS INTO WEAKNESSES.
I have a long record of success as an advocate for the disabled and ADA. I learned in 2012 of a whisper campaign being planned to falsely claim that the reason I advocate for the disabled is because I was supposedly disabled myself!
Now they seem to be struggling with how to cover their racist behavior over the cemetery, and are saying, "I know - let's call the guy who was the sole voice talking about the lost black community on River Road since 2011(!!!!) a RACIST!!!!!"
"Let's try to defame the guy who PUT THE BLACK COMMUNITY'S HISTORY LITERALLY BACK ON THE MAP of the Westbard sector plan document in 2014 as a RACIST, of all things!!!"
"Let's try to defame the guy who has been the SOLE MEDIA ADVOCATE OF THE CEMETERY UP THROUGH TODAY as a RACIST!!!!"
God, you people are SICK. Bottom feeder doesn't quite cover it. You're going to be exposed and defeated.
Do you even realize how stupid you sound making these false accusations?
7:06: Are you aware of the disadvantage black landowners had to fight a swindler stealing their land in 1950s America? Of course, from Farm Road to River Road, we're finding they still have a disadvantage in racist Montgomery County today.
Maybe Dr. King, John Lewis and Malcolm X should have just "taken it up with the courts?"
2:13: Wrong. Some are still in the area, and attending the church.
3:27: Wrong again! If this case were in court, the church would win, because all documents show there are bodies there. NO DOCUMENT shows bodies being removed or relocated from the cemetery. PERIOD.
So a judge who has to rule only on the documented facts would clearly have to side with the church. There is no documentation showing a removal of bodies.
@1:28 Robert Dyer wrote previously on the "swindle" of land from Black property owners: "(Harvey Mathews) said several tactics were used to get a signature on legal documents. Residents didn't understand what those documents said, or had been given liquor and didn't know what they were doing. He said that in his case, a man suddenly appeared one day, said his boss now owned their property, and told them to get out."
This is the only evidence offered for Dyer's claim.
5:50: What reason do you have to doubt their claims? What's your motivation here?
Your paranoia is frightening. For some reason I'm under your skin and you come up with nefarious confabulations to associate me with all these bizarre people and things.
You keep trying to trip me up, but I tell the truth, so it's moot. There are no big revelations ahead. I didn't realize being honest was such a revolutionary act.
Yes, you did say those things or inferred those things. Period. I'm not the only one who read it that way.
Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of tricks and duplicity than
straight forward and simple integrity in another.
6:43: No, I never said those things. You tripped yourself up by making false statements about what I said on a different website you never saw...unless it was you under yet another anonymous identity.
You keep saying "integrity" and credibility are so important, and you have none yourself with these politically-motivated false statements.
If the land was swindled away from the owners in the 1950's, then the church should be making that their main focus. It should be "Return the land to the 1950's owner, since it was not legally purchased."
They are making no such claim, and instead going after the current owner who had nothing to do with the 1950's transaction at all.
I wonder why -- perhaps because the land sale was indeed legitimate?
Even Mr. Matthews claim is that he heard that _some_ land sales were like this, but he never mentions the cemetery land specifically.
Said it before, I'll say it again:
It's pretty kooky how nobody was marching or insisting on a museum or name-calling the owners, or paying any attention to this until the land was sold and a new development plan was unveiled. If the land hadn't been sold and re-envisioned, would there still be protests? It's not like this information is new.
Why hasn't this been a big deal for the past 50 years? Why suddenly is it unconscionable to leave the site alone and do nothing?
There are lots of questions.
Saith Dyer: "No, I never said those things. You tripped yourself up by making false statements about what I said on a different website you never saw...unless it was you under yet another anonymous identity."
http://www.rockvillenights.com/2017/07/rockville-confederate-statue-secretly.html
http://www.rockvillenights.com/2017/08/moco-council-spanish-radio-program.html
LOL, what a pathetic liar.
@8:29 I agree with you. Why didn't the church protest in the 1960s or 1970s or 1980s and so on? Apparently Mr Matthews knew there was a cemetery there, so it wasn't a secret. It only comes up as part of the "Save Westbard" movement? Hmm....
9:28 AM Past is prologue.
There is apparently a small number of adults that actually want to desecrate the cemetery a second time. Sadly, this handful of people are the developer's out of state corporate board members, the MoCo Council and the Planning Board. They hold all of the cards- for now. There's not much residents can do other than continuing to protest in the streets.
There's no support from Bethesda residents for this.
"There's no support from Bethesda residents for this."
How much support was there for the protest? Seemed like only 50 out of 60,000 Bethesda residents bothered to turn out. That's less than 1/10 of 1 percent.
9:52 AM Are you saying the Bethesda community was supportive of the plan? lol. That's flat out false.
This wasn't a "small, but vocal minority" situation. The surrounding residents were firmly against the plan. It was approved regardless. And we now have term limits on the Council.
11:23, 9:47 AM - Will you please stop conflating Westbard and the neighborhoods immediately adjacent to it, with Bethesda as a whole?
"You tripped yourself up by making false statements about what I said on a different website you never saw...unless it was you under yet another anonymous identity."
http://www.rockvillenights.com/2017/08/moco-council-spanish-radio-program.html
http://www.rockvillenights.com/2017/07/rockville-confederate-statue-secretly.html
(Re-posted because Dyer deleted it again.)
Anonymous July 27, 2017 at 1:46 PM
"This isn't about right and left. Paris doesn't erect a statue of Hitler. He was an enemy combatant who walked thru the city. In fact he even spared Paris from destruction. But he was the enemy. Just because the rebels marched through MoCo does not mean there should be a statue on public lands. I would like to see a memorial to the area's native American history, but it ain't gonna happen."
Robert Dyer July 27, 2017 at 10:54 PM
"1:46: Big difference - Hitler wasn't French."
8:35/12:55: Go ahead and read my comments on the posts you linked to - nowhere did I say any of the things you are attributing to me, you dumbass. YOU are the pathetic liar.
Once your true identity is revealed, you can be sued for defamation.
1:13: Again, you reveal yourself to be a complete moron. You do realize that there were many who fought in the Confederate army who lived in Montgomery County? You do realize that both sides fighting in the Civil War were Americans? You do realize that the people who put up the statue were commemorating the Confederate veterans WHO LIVED IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY?
Please don't tell me you are so stupid that you do not know the difference between a foreign invasion of France by Germany, and an internal conflict within one nation (such as the Civil War). God, what an idiot.
5:43: Because you made a defamatory false statement in the final sentence.
"Once your true identity is revealed, you can be sued for defamation."
You've been beating this sad horse for over three years now. You're a paper tiger, Dyer.
Didn't you learn that yesterday with the grueling, dueling interrogations you
or your minion threw at me?
You're saying this was a defamatory false statement?
Horsehockey. Your readers aren't dumb enough to believe that.
Two separate threads yesterday. Who else would be so obsessive and insistent on knowing how I knew your age? (Turns out, I probably read it here)
1) https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=28521945&postID=944460795779123798
2) https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=28521945&postID=5870250142517019601&page=1&token=1517506012080
10:33am Your posts are grueling to read, Mr Failed Bethesda blogger.
10:56AM I don't have the time or energy to sink to your level; you have a nice day though.
"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism". --William Osler
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