Pickett Chapel Methodists began worshiping on this site shortly after purchasing an original town lot. Congregants erected this brick structure in 1827, where white and enslaved members worshiped until 1856, when a new building was constructed on East Main Street. In 1866, freedmen who once worshiped here in bondage bought the church and established Pickett Chapel Methodist Church. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places on April 18, 1977, services continued here until 1973, when the congregation moved to a new facility because of its growth. On this site, the Wilson County Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (C.O.R.E.) met to educate African-American citizens on the tenets of direct non-violent protest. Organized boycotts and attempts to desegregate local schools in 1961 and 1962 led to violent attacks on civil rights activists here on March 13, 1962. Afterwards, Lebanon Mayor Charles D. Lloyd appointed a biracial committee to address racial inequality in the city.