Can I get an amen?
Lizzie Snyder, born in 1852 to a Methodist family in Louisiana, married a cattle baron in Sacramento named Joseph Glide and became an important figure in the local peace-and-justice movement of the day. When Joseph died in 1909, Lizzie inherited his business and became quite successful while continuing her charitable work. In 1914, she opened a safe house for women and then, in 1929, she bought land in downtown San Francisco and built the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in the heart of the Tenderloin, on the corner of Ellis and Taylor Streets.
There are many houses of worship in San Francisco—it’s a far more religious town than you might suspect, considering its image among the faint of heart as Sodom and Gomorrah. But of all the city’s holy sites, Glide is the one place it seems that everyone who lives here, regardless of denomination, ethnicity, race, politics, or sexual orientation, has visited at some point, if only to hear the ensemble choir belting out joyful gospel music or the sermons of the church’s charismatic minister and local hero, Cecil Williams.
Info
Address 330 Ellie Street, San Francisco, CA, 94102, www.glide.org, +1 415.674.6000 | Public Transport Bus: 27 (Ellis St & Taylor St stop); 38 (O’Farrell St & Taylor St stop) | Hours Sunday service 9am & 11am| Tip Showdogs, two blocks away at 1020 Market Street, serves a variety of gourmand hot dogs and local beers. You might recognize the building from the opening scene of the 1994 movie Interview with the Vampire.
Williams arrived on the scene in 1963, a young African American with conviction, courage, and a heart as big as the city he ministers to. He took in all the people who had nowhere to go: prostitutes, Black Panthers, resistors of every ilk, as well as estranged matrons in Pacific Heights. He is truly a beloved local character. Whether providing assistance in the fight against poverty, drugs, AIDS, or any other epidemic facing the community, Glide and its pastors have been the city’s keel for many decades. They serve an average of 2,500 meals per day to those in need, which is evidenced by the frequent line of homeless and hungry people outside the church.
Simply put, when people talk about San Francisco being a progressive place, Reverend Williams and Glide Church are what they’re talking about.
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