William Seymour: Father of the Azusa Street Revival 

Who might have imagined almost 120 years ago in 1906 that a one-eyed black preacher in Los Angeles would eventually impact over 800 million people around the globe? 

William Joseph Seymour (May 2, 1870 – September 28, 1922) was the second of eight children born to recently freed slaves Simon and Phyllis Seymour in Centerville, Louisiana. His father contracted a fatal illness while serving in the Union army, dying in 1891.  The twenty-one-year-old Seymour became the primary bread winner, growing subsistence crops to help his deeply impoverished family survive.  

His spiritual heritage was a combination of Roman Catholic and Baptist.  At a young age, Seymour felt a call to ministry which he resisted.  He taught himself to read and write. At age 25, he moved to Indianapolis, where he served as a railroad porter and as a waiter in a fashionable restaurant.  During that time, Seymour was infected with smallpox, which almost killed him, and left him blinded in his left eye. He had a deep spiritual encounter with the Evening Light Saints group, a Church of God holiness movement in Cincinnati.

He spent a month at Charles Parham’s bible school in Houston, Texas, where he was taught about the Holy Spirit. Because of Jim Crow laws, Seymour was only allowed to listen to the lectures from the hallway. During that time, he was invited to pastor a holiness church in Los Angeles, founded by Julia Hutchinson who intended to become a missionary in Liberia.  

Seymour’s new pastoral position did not last long, as the door was padlocked on him.  With no salary or place to live, Seymour was invited by Richard Asberry to stay at 214 Bonnie Brae Street. This is where after a month of intense prayer and fasting, Seymour and several others first spoke in tongues. By that time, the overflow of participants caused the front porch to collapse, motivating Seymour to look for a new location.

Initially, Seymour rented a derelict building formerly used by an African Methodist congregation at 312 Azusa Street.  An arsonist had previously set it on fire, destroying the roof which had to be replaced. The building suffered from smoke and water damage.  One newspaper declared it a complete loss. While the earlier congregation met on the second floor, William decided to meet on the first floor which had been used as a church parking lot for horses.  As a result, the horse flies were notoriously painful during the church services, especially in the hot summers.  The dirt floor was covered with straw and sawdust.  The ventilation was so poor in the many services with Sunday crowds of up to 1,500 people that they would put their head under the pews looking for fresh air. 

The Azusa Street revival was more than anything else a revival of prayer. For more than three years, Azusa Street prayer services occurred three times each day at 10 am, noon and 7 pm. Seymour himself prayed five hours a day, often with his head hidden under a shoe box. His gift was to prayerfully usher people into the presence of God.  Azusa Street, like most revivals, was also a revival of music.  Their favorite hymn was ‘The Comforter Has Come’ by Frank Bottome.  There was also much spontaneous singing in the Spirit.  Being soft-spoken, Seymour was more of a teacher than a preacher. He was not known as a great orator.  John G. Lake said that Seymour had “more of God in his life than any man I had ever met…I do not believe that any other man in modern times had a more wonderful deluge of God in his life than God gave to that dear fellow.”

A major aspect of the Azusa Street revival was healing, with signs and wonders. They had a wall in which no-longer-needed crutches, canes and other medical aids were featured.  Like in New Testament times, many deaf people could hear again, and the blind could see.  Roberts Liardon, who sees Seymour as one of God’s General, spoke of a time when the fire department was called because some people saw fire on top of the Azusa building. There was no fire. Seymour said that the people saw the flames of Pentecost on top of the building. From three or four blocks away, people would feel a supernatural pull to come and attend the services.  

Particularly notable were the racially integrated worship services, which was virtually unheard of in that time period.  Seymour noted that the colour line was washed away in the blood. He did not want an all-black or an all-white church.  The diversity and unity among races and cultures at Azusa Street was unique.  Historian Vinson Synan commented, “From that day, I would say, Pentecostalism has had more crossing of ethnic boundaries than any movement in the world in Christianity.” Yale Historian Seymour Alstrom said “Seymour exerted greater influence upon American Christianity than any other black leader, because of his outreach across the colour line to inspire whites and all other people.” Seymour was one of the greatest civil rights leaders, perhaps a precursor to Martin Luther King Jr. Seymour insisted that in God’s Kingdom, all God’s children are treated equally and with respect.

The Azuza participants were serious about service and community.  They would come and serve people meals when they were sick and clean their house.

The newspaper coverage was rarely sympathetic.  A local Apostolic Faith newspaper at its peak had 50,000 subscribers.  The Apostolic Faith editor Clara Lum was offended when William Seymour married Jennie Evans Moore on May 13, 1908. So Lum stole the paper’s mailing list and started publishing The Apostolic Faith newspaper in Portland. She also started a new denomination which forbade marriage. Despite Seymour’s pleading, Lum would never return the mailing list. This greatly hampered Seymour’s ability to communicate with his growing global family.  

Gentleness and humility was a major aspect of the Azusa Street revival. He was not full of himself. He was full of God.  Seymour wanted the Holy Spirit to be in charge.  William H. Durham said of Seymour: 

He is the meekest man I have ever met. He walks and talks with God. His power is in his weakness. He seems to maintain a helpless dependence on God, and is as simple-hearted as a little child, and at the same time is so filled with God that you can feel the power and love every time you get near him.

William Durham noted how love and unity permeated Azusa Street like a sweet fragrance.  Seymour emphasized the need for both the gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit: “The Pentecostal power, when you sum it all up, is just more of God’s love. If it does not bring more love, it is simply a counterfeit.” Seymour remarked: “If you get angry, speak evil, or backbite, I don’t care how many tongues you may have. You have not the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” He went on to say: “Since tongues is not the evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, men and women can receive (tongues) and yet be destitute of the truth. Tongues is one of the signs, not the evidence. No one in our work shall be known as receiving the Holy Ghost simply because of speaking in tongues alone.”

A huge missionary force was raised up in the Azusa Street revival, sending people to every continent. Seymour modelled this openness to missions, saying: 

I can’t forget how, kneeling at the old board in Azusa Street, I promised God I would go where he wanted me to go and stay where he wanted me to stay, and be what he wanted me to be. I meant every word of it, and God has taken me at my word. 

Sixty percent of Guatemalans, 49 percent of Brazilians, 56 percent of Kenyans, and 44 percent of those in the Philippines have been impacted by the historic Azusa Street revival. Yale University has recognized Seymour as ‘one of ten most influential leaders in American religious history.’ In 1999, the Religion Newswriters Association named the Azusa Street Revival as one of the top ten events of the past millennium.

Despite his being used so powerfully, Seymour experienced great suffering, sadness, and pain. He was one of the world’s most successful failures.  At the end, he was virtually deserted and rejected, feeling that he indeed had failed.  After two heart attacks, he died at age 52 in his wifes’ arms.  His last words were “I love my Jesus so.” Douglas Nelson said that Seymour died of a broken heart over people missing his vision for world-wide racial reconciliation. Might we be willing to learn from Seymour how important it is to reconcile with other believers through the power of the Holy Spirit?