Cemetery advocates shut down HOC meeting again (Video)

Bethesda resident Lynn Pekkanen
testifies at HOC on behalf of Montgomery County
Councilmember-elect Andrew Friedson,
who was stuck in traffic

Advocates for the preservation and memorialization of the desecrated Moses African Cemetery descended on the monthly meeting of the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission, to protest the HOC's revived plan to develop new building atop the Moses African Cemetery on the Westwood Tower site in Bethesda. For the second time in a year, protesters successfully shut down the meeting, as HOC commissioners hastily voted to adjourn and retreat into a nearby sealed room to escape chanting activists who outshouted HOC Chair Jackie Simon.

This was the biggest turnout yet at the HOC to preserve the cemetery. The crowd of protesters exceeded the fire code capacity of the meeting room, forcing two HOC employees to bar the doors, letting additional attendees enter as others left one-by-one.

Protesters also brought more power behind their cause in the form of County Executive-elect Marc Elrich, the only County Councilmember who has stood in solidarity with Macedonia Baptist Church and the descendant community in the cemetery fight.  Elrich indicated that the cemetery is high on his very busy agenda by making his speaking appearance for the cause his first official action as County Executive-elect. The next executive struck a tone of cooperation with HOC in resolving the issue, but there's no doubt Elrich has the power to replace every commissioner currently on the board when their terms end.

As successive speakers took jabs at the HOC, the tone quickly became more combative, concluding in shouts of "Give us the land! Give us the land!" that drowned out Simon's attempt to read a legal statement about the HOC's new cemetery redevelopment effort. The HOC is attempting to minimize the church's status as the sole existing party to the cemetery by creating a blue ribbon commission on the graveyard with stakeholders who don't actually have any direct connection to the graves.

Outshouted and losing control of the meeting, commissioners hastily voted to adjourn and fled the room. Protesters were asked to leave. But at the same time as protesters and HOC security and officials argued over whether or not Macedonia Baptist Church Social Justice Ministry Chair Marsha Coleman-Adebayo had been threatened with arrest by the HOC, MBC trustee Harvey Matthews and HOC Director Stacy Spann had a more quiet and cordial discussion on the other side of the room.