This article first appeared in The Washington Informer, December 19, 2018
By Lisa Fager Bediako, Special to The Informer
More than 75 people recently gathered in Georgetown to remember and honor the ancestors buried in two historic African-American cemeteries — Mount Zion Church cemetery and the adjacent Female Union Band Society (FUBS) cemetery.
The combined three-acre, grassy and tree-lined properties, tucked away at 27th Street and Mill Road NW bordering Rock Creek Park, were recognized as an associated Site of Memory of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Slave Route Project. The decree is the first such designation in D.C. and first such U.N. recognition of cemeteries.
The Mount Zion and Female Union Band Society Cemeteries are two of the oldest remaining Black cemeteries in Georgetown and greater D.C., dating from 1809 to the 1950s. The properties are also a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.