Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition awarded 400 Years Commission grant

The Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition, led by Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo of Bethesda's Macedonia Baptist Church, has been recognized for its ongoing work by the 400 Years of African-American History Commission. Comprised of high-profile institutions including the Smithsonian Institution of African-American History and Culture, Howard University and the National Park Service, the commission has awarded BACC with a financial grant to further its work.

Coleman-Adebayo said the grant will fund a pop-up tabletop exhibit that will tell the story of the ongoing desecration of the Moses African Cemetery in Bethesda, and of the River Road community around it, which was founded by former slaves from an adjacent plantation. The exhibit will have removable panels that will allow it to tell different versions of the story to students of different grade levels. It could also transition from an exhibit on the present movement to save the cemetery for an activist audience, to a historical exhibit on the River Road community for an audience of historians.

The excitement over winning the grant is tempered by the ongoing cemetery fight, Coleman-Adebayo said, which at the moment is centered on excavation of property at the cemetery's edge for a self-storage building. “While we are humbled and delighted at the recognition this grant represents, we receive it with heavy hearts, as at this very moment when we should be celebrating, aggressive heavy equipment is destroying our ancestors’ final resting place. It is well beyond time for County Executive, Marc Elrich, to stop this blatant and racist destruction of a national and international treasure."