Due to the short time between the announcement of the hearing date and the hearing itself, no testimony was able to be submitted to the Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee for Senate Bill 960 (Highways – Public-Private Partnerships – Cultural Preservation), sponsored by Senator Susan Lee. Delegate Sara Love is the sponsor for the companion bill (HB 1373) in the House.
In lieu of testimony, Sierra Club Maryland Chapter offers the following points for consideration and reprints the statements of two of the descendants, also unable to be submitted as testimony for the committee's consideration due to the short time.
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Sierra Club Maryland Chapter Briefing Points on SB960
- The purpose of SB 960 (Highways – Public-Private Partnerships –Cultural Preservation) is to protect historic African American cemeteries, burial grounds, and cultural heritage sites from destruction by major P3 toll highway projects that have not been approved by the Maryland General Assembly.
- The Beltway in 1961 separated a historic African American cemetery and church. Now the boundaries of those 120 year old sites lie in the path of the Capital Beltway widening plan to add 4 private luxury toll lanes.
- These African American National Register of Historic Places eligible sites face significant adverse impacts, encroachment and potential destruction.
- At the cemetery, graves may be disturbed and relocated. This highway project threatens to repeat an injustice on both those interred in a sacred burial site but also their living descendants, who are fighting alongside local partners to protect this hallowed ancestral resting place and their cultural heritage.
- The federal government recently stopped a highway project in Texas based on civil rights and environmental justice concerns. The federal government is not standing by anymore to watch systematic racial and environmental injustice. The State of Maryland shouldn't either.
- The state legislature should reassert its proper role in P3 decisions, especially on massive highway projects that have the potential to deepen inequities, both by harming Black and minority communities and by supporting separate but unequal highway-based transportation alternatives that only the wealthy can afford.
- It was not envisioned that the State’s 2013 P3 law would be used to outsource Maryland’s interstate highways in a 50-year plan to monetize congestion with toll roads. The 2013 law is weak and being misused, and needs to be reformed. Highway P3 projects must advance racial and environmental justice and protect African American heritage sites and history.
- Descendants and small communities should not have to face the combined power and authority of Maryland Department of Transportation and an international highway developer, without recourse to the State legislature’s authority, accountability and oversight.
- The legislature needs to step in and grant stronger legal protections to vulnerable African American sites in the path of P3 highway projects. We cannot stand by and allow systematic racial injustice to be perpetuated.
Statement of Diane Baxter, Descendant
127 years ago, in 1894 my great grandfather James Coates was buried in Morningstar Tabernacle No. 88 Hall Cemetery (MTHC)! 36 years later, in 1930, his widow Annie Coates Dixon, came to also rest in MTHC. They lived and died with dignity and expected to have perpetuity in their respective resting place within the holy grounds of MTHC. Possibly disturbed in the 1960's with the construction of the 495 Beltway, their descendants who number in the hundreds, of which I am one, and who stand with me, demand they continue to rest in peace. This bill will make it impossible for the 1960's historic tragedy to repeat itself!
Statement of Montgomery C. Crawford, Descendant
My name is Montgomery C. Crawford. I am a descendant of both the Harris and Crawford family members of Moses Hall Tabernacle #88. I spent my childhood living with my parents and grandparents Peter Carter Harris and Estella Warren Harris after they relocated from Rock Springs Maryland to Washington D.C.
As a child I frequently visited my father’s parents George and Irene Crawford who lived on Seven Locks Rd, Cabin John Maryland. George Crawford died in 1975 and was laid to rest in Moses Hall Cemetery. His wife Irene passed in 2005 and was unable to be buried with her husband. Though Cabin John was rural I often referred to it as the country, the community was clean and family orientated. I will never forget the smell of fresh country air, wood burning and fresh mowed grass. Over the past 3 years I’ve learned a great deal about the history of my ancestors and the area that they once lived and the word TAKE often comes to mind.
TAKE (verb)
- lay hold of something with one’s hands, reach for and hold.
- remove (someone or something) from a particular place.
With this being said I ask that an alternative plan to widen 495 Beltway be considered to eliminate disturbing the resting place of my ancestors and others buried in Moses Hall Cemetery. The Taking of African American Cemeteries must stop!
May They Rest In Peace
Thank you,
Montgomery C. Crawford
For Further Information
Opinion: Protecting a Piece of Md. History From the State's Beltway Expansion Plan, Chandler Loudon, Maryland Matters, April 2021
Stop Destroying African American Cemeteries, Dr. Alexandra Jones, Sapiens, February 2021
Maryland Beltway expansion might require moving part of historic African American cemetery, Katherine Shaver, Washington Post, October 2020