The Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition (BACC) has been fighting for eleven years to stop construction on top of a desecrated African cemetery and to build a museum to honor and educate about the erased history of the death camps that profited from the breeding of African girls, who are buried there, for forced labor. In what is considered a progressive bastion, Montgomery County in Maryland, not a single politician has supported their struggle. Clearing the FOG speaks with BACC co-founder Dr. Marsha Coleman- Adebayo about their efforts on the streets, in legislative bodies and in the courts and why their work is foundational to ending white supremacy.
**Warning: Sensitive content regarding human trafficking, rape, pedophilia and KKK terrorism.**
Listen here:
Review us on iTunes! Click here … Then click on “View in iTunes … Then click “Ratings and Reviews.”Guest:
Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, a civic activist, was born on August 18, 1952 in Detroit, Michigan to Majestice Thompson Coleman and Samuel Coleman. She graduated from Detroit’s Mumford High School in 1970. Coleman-Adebayo attended Barnard College of Columbia University in New York City, where she earned her A.B. degree in economics and political science in 1974. She went on to receive her Ph.D. degree in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1982.
Coleman-Adebayo joined American University in Washington D.C. as an assistant professor in the School of International Service and as the academic director of the Washington Semester Program between 1981 and 1984, while also working as a senior research analyst with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc., in 1983 and 1984. The following year, Coleman-Adebayo was hired as a program officer and congressional liaison in the United Nations Sudano-Sahelian Office in New York, New York. In 1988, she joined the World Wildlife Fund as a senior social scientist, responsible for program development, supervision, and coordination of programs in West and Eastern Africa until 1990. That year, she became a senior policy analyst with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), eventually serving as a liaison to the White House and the Government of South Africa under President Nelson Mandela. After uncovering that a U.S. chemical company was causing environmental harm through its mining of vanadium in South Africa and filing a suit against the EPA on the basis of discrimination in 2000, Coleman-Adebayo founded the No FEAR Coalition, a civil rights and whistleblower organization, in 2002. The No FEAR Act (Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act) was passed the same year. In 2011, she published her book, No Fear: A Whistleblower’s Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at EPA, with the Chicago Review Press.
Coleman-Adebayo joined the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service as an adjunct professor in 2002 and George Mason University as a scholar in residence in 2007. In 2016, she became president and CEO of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition (BACC), a historic African burial ground containing the bodies of enslaved and post-emancipated Africans.
Coleman-Adebayo has served as a member and first lady of Macedonia Baptist Church since 1990. She joined the Black Farmers Association in 2006 and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 2023. She is also a member of the Coalition to Save Thoroughfare Cemetery and has served on the board of directors of the National Whistleblower Center.
Coleman-Adebayo has received numerous awards and honors, including the EPA Public Service Award in 1993, the Valuable Employee Award in 1994, the EPA Unsung Hero Award for Community Service in South Africa and a Bronze Medal Award in 1999, an Award for Outstanding Service from Blacks in Government in 2003, and Good Housekeeping magazine’s Woman of the Year Award in 2003, among others.
Coleman-Adebayo and her husband, A. Segun Adebayo, have two children, and they reside in Bethesda, Maryland.
