FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 17, 2020
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
Kevin Zeese, Press Secretary
KZeese@HowieHawkins.US
Robert Smith, Media Coordinator
Robert@HowieHawkins.us
Howie Hawkins Joins Bethesda African American Cemetery Coalition
Green Candidate Calls Desecration of Moses Cemetery a “Crime Against Humanity”
Syracuse, NY: Green Party presidential nominee, Howie Hawkins, will participate in actions with the Bethesda African American Cemetery Coalition on Wednesday, August 19, 2020.
Hawkins will join protests against the desecration of the African American Cemetery on the ground of a former tobacco plantation and slave breeding plantation that became a successful Black community until it was displaced to build a suburb for white people. Vice Presidential Candidate Angela Walker will have a live streamed conversation on this issue with Marsha Coleman-Adebayo on Tuesday, August 18.
Where:
Macedonia Baptist Church
5119 River Road
Bethesda, Maryland 20816
When:
10 AM, August 19, Press Conference
March:
11:30 to 12:30
March two blocks down River Road to the Desecration Site, the former cemetery. Participants may block trucks taking materials from the site.
Howie Hawkins statement: “The desecration of Moses Cemetery is a crime against humanity that continues the constant crimes against Black humanity that have been committed at this site since slavery times: exploiting slaves on a plantation, breeding slaves by rape, displacing a Black community for real estate profits, and now destroying a cemetery of many victims of these atrocities for more real estate profits. It is time to stop putting profits over human decency and begin to make reparations for the damages by protecting this historic site.”
Vice presidential candidate Angela Walker will have a livestream interview and conversation with Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, the founder of the Bethesda African American Community Coalition, on Tuesday, August 18 beginning at 8 PM. They will take questions from viewers. The live stream can be seen on the Hawkins/Walker Facebook page.
Angela Walker said: “As a descendant of enslaved African people, I am particularly concerned and aggrieved about the ongoing desecration of the African cemetery located in Bethesda, Maryland. The history of the enslavement of African people in the United States is a brutal, enraging and heartbreaking one, and the sites where our Ancestors’ remains are located must be treated with respect as the sacred places they are. The destruction of the Bethesda site is a continuation of the devaluation of Black life in this country, where our right to simply exist is constantly challenged. For those who consider themselves the owners of that land to be so cavalier about the displacement of the people buried there speaks to the fact that even now, in 2020, nothing has changed for Black people in the United States. Alive or dead, we are bodies to be brutalized, to be locked up, to be denied access to basic needs, to be left vulnerable during a pandemic. We deserve better. And we will continue to fight for it until we have it. The time for reparations to African Americans is now, and the egregious disrespect of the Moses Cemetery is an example of why, on so many levels.”
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