Racial segregation was the law of our land in the early 1900s. Churches followed suit, dividing along color lines. The Azusa Street Revival offered a marked contrast to this racial divide, a little glimpse into heaven. One eyewitness was so impressed by the racial harmony that he wrote in his diary, “The color line is washed away in the blood [of Jesus].”
William J. Seymour (1870-1922), born to formerly enslaved parents, came to faith in his early years. While pastoring a church in Houston, he attended Charles Parham’s Bible class, provided he would sit in the hallway and listen with the door ajar. Charles Parham was a leader in the holiness movement who believed in a subsequent filling of the Spirit after conversion, as evidenced in a spiritual language called tongues. William preached on tongues in a Los Angeles church, but elders padlocked the doors the following Sunday to express displeasure with his message. William rented an abandoned church building on Azusa Street in a rundown part of Los Angeles for eight dollars a month, and revival broke out. For three years, whites and blacks, Latinos and Asians worshiped at all hours of the day and night, seven days a week. In The Apostolic Faith, the paper William edited, he wrote, “One token of the Lord’s coming is that there is a melting of all races and nations together.” The local press had a different take on things. One paper called it “a disgraceful intermingling of the races.” William came to believe that whites and blacks worshiping together was a surer sign of the Spirit’s filling than speaking in tongues. “Don’t talk about tongues; talk about Jesus,” he said. William invited his mentor Charles Parham to visit, but Charles was aghast that black people were not “in their place.” He denounced the revival as a “darky camp meeting” and led a white faction to separate. A white editor of his paper left with the entire mailing list of 50,000 subscribers.
This little glimpse of heaven also provides a cautionary tale on our racial divide. Revelation declares in God’s coming kingdom that a great multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language will gather before the throne of the Lamb (Rev. 7.9-10). William ends a sermon in The Apostolic Faith with words that lead us to pray for living water the Spirit brings: