Rev. Alfred Young served as pastor of Sharp Street United Methodist Church in the 1800s. Blacks freed by Quakers in the post-revolution period organized Sharp Street as the county's oldest black church, and Quakers contributed to its extensive educational programs. It took its name from Baltimore's Sharp Street Church, regarded as the Mother Church of black Methodism.

The choir of Sharp Street United Methodist Church rehearses in 1940. Since 1822 the church has served Sandy Spring's black community as a religious, social, educational, and cultural center. From left, Rev. Dockett, Robert Cole, Zadie Riggs, Lucy Hopkins, Mattie Claggett, Mary Hopkins Johnson, Corrie Alcorn Hodge, Justine Cole, Blanche Williams, Martha Hackett, Mary Thomas, Maude Hopkins Clark, Elizabeth Thomas, Coleman Thomas, John Hopkins, and Llewelyn Bishop.

Members of Sharp Street United Methodist Church gather in 1948. They Are, from rear left, Ella Pumphrey, Sadie Budd, Florence Powell, Marie Johnson, Lena Phoenix, Alice Wallace, Carolyn Foreman, Breatrice Lee, and Susan Stewart: next row: Talbot Offord, Cora Johnson, Roberta Hood, William Steward, Howard Thomas, Noah Addison, Lilly Mae Thomas, Milton Hackett, Louise Bacon, Ruth Hall; next row: Shirley Foreman, Doris Hopkins, Barbara Ann Johnson, Ida Mae Walker, Bernice Gaines, Alice Thomas, two Johnson sisters, Ruby King, Helen Bacon, Lois Offord; next row: Margaret Hall, Mary King, Mary Bacon, Bertha Bishop, Marshall Brooks, and Sharp Street school superintendent Leslie Gaines; at front, the young Johnson brothers, Ellen Hall, Onita Offord, Joyce Gaines, Jean Love, Wilma Bishop, Leslie Gaines, Jr., Margaret Sewell, Winifred Gaines, and Gwendolyn Gaines.