MOSES CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1880s

ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

Moses Cemetery on River Road in Bethesda, Maryland, is located on poor land that was hilly, swampy and non-arable. Before the Civil War the land was bounded on all sides by slave owners. Although no documentation remains, there is a high probability that enslaved people from these were buried on this poor land as that was common across the slave states. After the Civil War, the land was sold to a number of free Blacks who established a thriving town there. A number of burials were documented there during the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, including a Civil War veteran who fought with the 30th Colored Infantry Regiment.

In 1910, an African American community across the DC border, which faced displacement to make way for suburban development, sought to move its Cemetery to the River Road location where it bought a one-acre plot of land in the middle of the community. Congressional approval was required to move the bodies which finally happened in 1920. In the 1950s, the River Road community came under similar pressure from developers and by the mid 1960s, the community had been driven off the land. The 1910 cemetery was buried under a parking lot while scattered other tombstones could still be spotted. The cemetery is now the center of protest and legal action to restore the cemetery.

BCN Contact Information:

Marsha Coleman Adebayo

nofearcoalition@aol.com

bethesdaafricancemeterycoalition.net