This program will bring together two historic Black communities—Valley Truck Farms in San Bernardino, CA, and the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition in Bethesda, MD—both displaced by development and industry. Community members and artists from these communities will engage in a conversation about their collaborative efforts to unearth, remember, and honor these significant Black spaces.

Panelists: 

Tamara Cedré
Dr. Marsha Cole-Adebayo
Pastor Percy Harper
Gail Rebhan
Dr. Jen Tilton, moderator

About BACC:

The Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition seeks to stop the desecration of Moses Macedonia Cemetery, preserve the rich history of this once thriving African community, and consecrate Moses Macedonia Cemetery with a memorial and museum on River Road in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Marsha Cole-Adebayo is the President of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition. 

Moses Cemetery is located near Gail Rebhan’s Washington, DC neighborhood. The BACC’s mission resonates with Rebhan whose own Jewish ancestors’ burial grounds were disturbed and plundered during and after the Second World War in Europe. As a lifelong activist, Rebhan supports BACC’s efforts through her photography. 

 About Valley Truck Farms:

Valley Truck Farms, a Black community that thrived in San Bernardino, CA in the 1920s to the 1970s and 1980s was destroyed by city and county zoning decisions and the expansion of a warehouse economy. One of the only places remaining is St. Mark’s Missionary Baptist Church which was founded in 1929 and is still active today. 

In collaboration with Dr. Jen Tilton and other community archivists through A People’s History of the I.E., Tamara Cedré worked on Live from the Frontline; a participatory public memory project inviting artists into the archives and the landscapes of logistics to create site-specific works that explore the roots of environmental racism. In the Valley Truck Farms area of San Bernardino, Cedré photographed St. Mark’s Baptist church, a church that has been in existence for 94 years and where Percy Harper has been pastor for 37 years. Once a fertile, picturesque Black farming community, the church is now surrounded by warehouse development and a dwindling congregation that reflects the lack of residences in the area. 

Learn more about BACC here.

See Gail Rebhan’s work with BACC here.

Learn more about Valley Truck Farms here.

See Tamara Cedré work with Valley Truck Farms here. 

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Credits

This program is co-organized by Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California, A People’s History of the IE, and UCR ARTS. Programs at UCR ARTS are supported by the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at UCR and by the City of Riverside.

Unearthing Black Histories Through Photography is presented in conjunction with Gail Rebhan, About Time, an exhibition on view at the Caifornia Museum of Photography through August 17. Gail Rebhan, About Time is curated by Sally Stein, Professor Emerita, Department of Art History, UC Irvine, and is accompanied by a publication of the same title (MACK, 2023). The exhibition was originally conceived for the American University Museum, Washington, DC, where it was on view in 2023.