The M.L. Harris United Methodist Church is located at 4601 Old Cusseta Road in Columbus, Georgia. It was founded in 1872 and has served the black community of Columbus for over 140 years. According to the late historian Alphonso Biggs, around 1872 a group of people regularly gathered under the grape arbors or wherever else they could find to worship. In 1882, the Georgia legislature granted the group a plot of land at the corner of 6th Avenue and 7th Street to build a church. The original Simpson Chapel Methodist Church was erected at 640 6th Avenue. It is thought that the church was named after Bishop Matthew Simpson, who presided over the 1869 general conference in Atlanta. This conference approved the resolution to organize colored churches in separate districts under the direction of Negro elders.

By the 1960’s, the chapel was a very small church surrounded by many larger ones. Church leaders decided that the church needed to move if it was going to grow. The church broke ground on property at Bedford St and Old Cusseta Road in1963. Stovall Construction Company built the church for a cost of $ 42,564. The church was renamed the M. L. Harris Methodist Church in recognition of the tremendous contributions that Rev. Marquis Lafayette Harris made toward its construction. In 1968 the church became the United Methodist Church.