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William Seymour

William Joseph Seymour (1870–1922). Born on May 2, 1870, in Centerville, Louisiana, to formerly enslaved parents Simon and Phyllis Seymour, William Seymour was a Holiness preacher who led the Azusa Street Revival, birthing modern Pentecostalism. Raised in poverty as one of eight children in a Baptist family, he experienced racial violence early, prompting moves to Indianapolis by 1895 and Cincinnati by 1900, where he contracted smallpox, losing much of his vision in one eye. Converted in 1895, he joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church but was drawn to the Holiness movement, briefly attending Charles Parham’s Bible school in Houston in 1905, where he embraced speaking in tongues. In 1906, invited to preach in Los Angeles, he was locked out of a church for his Pentecostal teachings but began meetings at a home on Bonnie Brae Street, sparking the Azusa Street Revival at 312 Azusa Street, where thousands experienced spiritual outpourings from 1906 to 1909, transcending racial divides. Seymour pastored the Apostolic Faith Mission, publishing The Apostolic Faith newsletter, but authored no books. Married to Jennie Evans Moore in 1908, he had no children and faced declining influence as Pentecostalism fragmented. He died of a heart attack on September 28, 1922, in Los Angeles, saying, “The Holy Spirit is the life of the Church, bringing us into God’s presence.”