William J. Seymour
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| William Joseph Seymour | |
 leader of the Azusa Street Revival
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| Born | May 2, 1870 Centerville, Louisiana, U.S.A |
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| Died | September 28, 1922 Los Angeles, California, U.S.A |
| Occupation | Evangelist |
| Spouse | Jenny Evans Moore, 1883-1936 |
William Joseph Seymour (May 2, 1870 - September 28, 1922) was an African American minister, and an initiator of the Pentecostal religious movement.
Seymour was born the son of freed slaves in Centerville, Louisiana. As a grown man he became a student at at a newly formed bible school founded by Charles Parham in Houston, TX in 1905. It was here that he learned the major tenets of the Holiness Movement. He developed a belief in glossolalia ("speaking in tongues") as a confirmation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He later moved to Los Angeles to minister in churches. As a consequence of his new found Pentecostal doctrine he was removed from the parish where he had been appointed. Looking for a place to continue his work, he found a run-down building in downtown Los Angeles located on Azusa Street, and preached his doctrinal beliefs there.
The result was the Azusa Street Revival. Seymour not only rejected the existing racial barriers in favor of "unity in Christ", he also rejected the then almost-universal barriers to women in any form of church leadership. This revival meeting extended from 1906 until 1909, and became the subject of intense investigation by more mainstream Protestants. Some left feeling that Seymour's views were heresy, while others accepted his teachings and returned to their own congregations to expound them. The resulting movement became widely known as "Pentecostalism", likening it to the manifestations of the Holy Spirit recorded as occurring in the first two chapters of Acts as occurring from the day of the Feast of Pentecost onwards.
Most of the current charismatic groups can claim some lineage linking them to the Azusa Street Revival and William Seymour. While the movement was largely to fracture along racial lines within a decade, the splits were in some ways perhaps less deep than the vast divide that seems often to separate many white religious denominations from their black counterparts. Probably the deepest split in the Pentecostal movement today is not racial, but rather between Trinitarian and "Jesus Only" theologies.
While there had been similar manifestations in the past (the Cane Ridge, Kentucky revival a century before in the Second Great Awakening being one such example), the current worldwide Pentecostal and charismatic movements are generally agreed to have been in part outgrowths of Seymour's ministry and the Azusa Street Revival.
William Seymour died of a heart attack in 1922. A play commemorating him and the revival, Miracle on Azusa Street, is sometimes produced by Pentecostal churches both to teach their own members about their religious origins and as an outreach to those outside. A feature film on Seymour's life entitled Azusa Street began production in 2006, the centennial anniversary of the Azusa Street revival. The film is written and directed by Richard Rossi.
