A large grave marker located at the burial site of 17 Confederate soldiers in Silver Spring was vandalized over the weekend.
During the night of June 14, unknown assailants spray painted over a cemetery marker on the Grace Episcopal Church grounds in Silver Spring that dates back to 1864.
According to Interim Rev. Rich Kukowski, the soldiers buried there were killed during the Battle of Fort Stevens in Washington, D.C.
About 10 years after the battle, their remains were reinterred at the Silver Spring Church and then moved again, still on the church grounds, in 1894, Kukowski said.
While Maryland was a southern state and the pastor of the church at that time was a southern sympathizer, much has changed at Grace Episcopal, he said.
“The church’s current value and beliefs differ greatly from the beliefs of people in the 1800s,” according to a press release issued by the church.
Kukowski estimated that about 60 percent of his parishioners are white and 40 percent are African Americans.
“It’s a very diverse parish,” he said.
Church officials have no plans to clean up the marker during the near future and prefer to leave the spray-painted vandalism alone, Kukowski said.
On June 20, church members will gather to hang a large Black Lives Matter banner on the property, he said, adding that is part of its Juneteenth celebration.
One of the church’s window had been decorated with the depiction of a confederate soldier. That was removed a few years ago and will be replaced with the representation of a member who is a Tuskegee airman.
“We follow Christ’s example in challenging racism: building a community of faith that demands racial justice,” said Kukowski. “As a community of faith, our values prompt us to raise awareness of and interrupt all forms of racism.”
The church joins with others who are concerned about Confederate statues, he said, stressing that the grave marker was not a statue.
“Although, we strongly reject slavery for which Confederate soldiers fought, we acknowledge that these soldiers are buried in consecrated ground, just as their former opponents received at Battleground National Cemetery,” he noted.
