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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Melissa Hellmann

‘A dog cemetery would not be treated like this’: the fight to preserve Black burial grounds in the US

a men and woman holding a signs, one saying 'Desecration is racism, save Moses Cemetery!'
Paul Pumphrey, a board member of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition (Bacc), and Alexa Sloan, a community organizer with Bacc, demonstrate near the grounds of the former Moses Macedonia African Cemetery in Bethesda, Maryland, on 28 May 2025. Photograph: Kyna Uwaeme/The Guardian

A large puddle of water and thickets of weeds cover a vacant lot in Bethesda, Maryland. A towering apartment complex overshadows the cracked asphalt, but Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is most concerned about what – and who – lies beneath.

The nearly two-acre site in the Washington DC suburb covers the historic Moses Macedonia African Cemetery and another burial ground for enslaved people, with the oldest portion dating back to at least the mid-1800s. Hundreds of bones found there may be the remains of enslaved people and their descendants, while more bodies may lie under the parking lot of the Westwood Tower apartment complex.

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