Bethesda’s Lost Colony

When Marsha Coleman-Adebayo heard a rumor that members of her church might be buried under a parking lot for a high-rise apartment building, she couldn’t believe it. This small plot of land in the wealthy, white suburb of Bethesda, Maryland, had once been part of the Black community that flourished here after emancipation, and was now dwindling due to development and gentrification. The land was now worth tens of millions of dollars, and developers were eyeing it for further construction. So Marsha became part of a years-long fight between the county and former residents of River Road, the once-thriving Black community within Bethesda, to save and memorialize the Moses Macedonia African Cemetery.This week, Trymaine travels to River Road to meet with Marsha and Harvey Mathews, a descendant of the community who can still remember what once was. They visit the site of the former cemetery and the tiny church fighting to preserve the memory of their ancestors.For a transcript, please visit msnbc.com/intoamerica. Follow and share the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, using the handle @intoamericapod.Thoughts? Feedback? Story ideas? Write to us at [email protected] More: Blood on Black Wall Street: Excavating the PastLife, Loss, and Libations   To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.