Springfield Baptist Church

Front inscription

This is the oldest black Baptist congregation in downtown Greenville. It was founded in 1867 by members of Greenville Baptist Church (now First Baptist Church), which had been a combined congregation of whites and blacks before the Civil War. Rev. Gabriel Poole, known as “Father Poole,” was its first pastor. The new church worshipped in First Baptist Church until it built its own church here in 1872.

Reverse inscription

The congregation purchased this site from the estate of Vardry McBee in 1871 and completed its first church, a frame building later covered in brick veneer, in 1872. That church was replaced by a brick Gothic Revival church in 1959. Springfield Baptist Church hosted many significant meetings during the Civil Rights Movement. The 1959 church burned in 1972 and was replaced by the present church in 1976.