Harvey Matthews remembers spending time in Moses Macedonia African Cemetery as a child growing up in the vibrant River Road community of Bethesda, Maryland.

Hundreds of formerly enslaved Black people and their descendants are believed to be buried in the cemetery. But as Matthews got older, he watched developers bulldoze the area, bury the cemetery under asphalt and turn it into a parking lot. In 1968, the neighboring high rise apartment building called Westwood Towers was completed.

“That’s your last final resting place and to have that uprooted, bulldozed, and this that and the other, it’s just crazy as hell to me," said Matthews, 80.