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Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition urges council to protect Moses Cemetery
Summary
Rabita Moses told the council that Moses Cemetery is sacred ground threatened by development and called on county leaders to act, saying the coalition has won court victories but that county officials have been silent.
Rabita Moses, speaking for the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition, told the Montgomery County Council at the public hearing on the Bethesda downtown master plan amendment that Moses Cemetery "is more than a burial site. It's a sacred ground, the final resting place of our ancestors and a testament to both the resilience and suffering of the black community in Montgomery County, Maryland."
Moses framed development that threatens the site as part of a longer history of dispossession and argued that recent court decisions support the coalition's legal case: "BACC has already won victories in the Supreme Court of Maryland and the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, proving that what has happened to Moses Cemetery is not just morally wrong. It is legally indefensible."
She accused developers of erasing Black history and urged the council and County Executive Mark Eldridge to break what she described as silence and take protective action. "Not 1 of you has spoken out against the desecration," Moses said, calling for the return of land to affected families, formal protection for Moses Cemetery and establishment of a museum to preserve the history.
Her remarks were emotional and accusatory in tone; the transcript records no response from county officials during the public hearing. The coalition's references to court victories were not accompanied by case citations in the testimony; council staff and members did not respond during the session.
