William J. Seymour

Life and work

Seymour was born in Louisiana to parents who had been enslaved, and grew up amid the poverty and racial violence of the post-Reconstruction South before moving north and eventually to Houston, where he studied briefly under Charles Parham, an early proponent of the teaching that speaking in tongues was the necessary evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit — though, due to segregation laws, Seymour was required to listen to Parham's classes from a separate room.

Invited to pastor a small Los Angeles holiness congregation in 1906, Seymour's preaching on Spirit baptism led to a spiritual outpouring that, after outgrowing a house meeting, moved to a former livery stable and African Methodist Episcopal church building at 312 Azusa Street.

The Azusa Street Revival, which continued nearly daily for about three years, was remarkable for its racial and gender integration at a time of strict American segregation — black, white, Latino, and Asian worshippers, along with men and women, participated and led together, a fact contemporary observers, both sympathetic and hostile, found startling.

News of the revival, spread through Seymour's paper The Apostolic Faith and by visitors who carried the experience home, is credited by historians as the primary catalyst for the modern global Pentecostal movement, which by the early twenty-first century numbered several hundred million adherents worldwide, including Pentecostal and charismatic Christians across every continent.

In their own words

Reported the revival's message as one of "the baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire" available to all believers regardless of race.The Apostolic Faith newsletter

Further reading

• Encyclopedia Britannica: Azusa Street Revival