The Azusa Street Revival: how a Los Angeles mission led by William Seymour sparked global Pentecostalism

The building at 312 Azusa Street had been used as a stable and a storehouse. In April 1906, a group of believers led by William J. Seymour moved in, set up planks as benches and began holding meetings. Within weeks, crowds of Black, white, Latino and Asian worshippers packed the room, praying, singing and speaking in tongues. Newspapers mocked them. The movement they started now counts hundreds of millions of members worldwide.

Seymour, Houston and Los Angeles

Seymour was born in Louisiana in 1870 to parents who had been enslaved. He was blind in one eye after an illness. He became a preacher in the Holiness movement. In Houston, Seymour attended Bible classes led by Charles Parham, who taught that speaking in tongues was evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit. Because of segregation, Seymour reportedly had to listen from outside the classroom.

Invited to preach in Los Angeles, Seymour was locked out of the church after his first sermons. He continued meeting with believers in a home on Bonnie Brae Street, where several people spoke in tongues in April 1906.

Azusa Street and the missionaries

The meetings moved to Azusa Street, where they continued almost daily for several years. At a time of strict segregation, the meetings brought people of different races together in worship. One observer famously wrote that “the color line was washed away in the blood.” The mission published a newspaper, The Apostolic Faith, which spread news of the revival to thousands of readers around the world.

Visitors carried the message home, and missionaries left for Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. Critics, including some church leaders, dismissed the meetings as disorderly or fanatical.

Divisions and Africa

Over time, disputes and racial divisions split the movement, and white Pentecostals formed separate denominations. Seymour continued to lead the mission until his death in 1922. Pentecostal and charismatic churches in Ghana, Nigeria and across Africa trace part of their history to the global movement that Azusa Street helped spark. The original building at 312 Azusa Street was later demolished, and a plaque now marks the site in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles.

A one-eyed preacher in a former stable started meetings that newspapers laughed at. Today, many of the world’s fastest-growing churches, from Accra to São Paulo, belong to the movement those meetings began.