Richland County · Marker 40-159
Sidney Park C.M.E. Church
1114 Blanding St., Columbia
Front inscription
Sidney Park C.M.E. Church was founded in 1886 and has been at this site since 1889. It grew out of a dispute among members of Bethel A.M.E. Church, who left that congregation and applied to join the Colored Methodist Episcopal (now Christian Methodist Episcopal) Church. The congregation acquired this site in 1886 and built its first sanctuary, a frame building, in 1889. That church burned by 1892.
Reverse inscription
This Gothic Revival brick church, built in 1893, was constructed by members who provided materials and labor. In the 1930s many members joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the church later hosted many meetings during the Civil Rights Movement. Sidney Park was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.