As currently drafted, the bill would create a fund to finance the preservation of African-American cemeteries in the state. It would also fund a study of the obstacles and threats to such preservation.
The Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition is suggesting four amendments to strengthen and expand the bill: the rights of African-American descendants to the remains of their ancestors and how their resting places will be memorialized and celebrated should be recognized; the bill should address the fact that many black cemeteries are no longer in the hands of the original black landowners, and now often in the hands of developers; create civil and criminal penalties for the desecration of black cemeteries; and elevate the status of descendant communities in the bill to be equal to that of developers, "white preservationist NGOs, [and] big-business cultural resources groups."
BACC notes that some of the organizations currently recognized in the bill have facilitated the desecration of Moses African Cemetery in Bethesda. They should not, therefore, have the same status as the descendants of those buried in the cemetery, BACC argues.
