GLIDE Memorial Church
Nineteen-thirties sanctuary reborn as a radically inclusive congregation for the marginalized, with its cross famously removed.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to GLIDE Memorial Church in San Francisco starts with what is missing above its altar: no cross, in a sanctuary built in 1931 by a Methodist widow for a proper working congregation. You'll hear how the Tenderloin neighborhood around it emptied the pews by the 1950s, and how a young Black preacher named Cecil Williams, hired in 1963, began opening the doors to the very people the old congregation had turned away. It follows what Williams did to the cross itself, and the alliance his church helped found with gay rights activists in 1964.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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