William J. Seymour

William J. Seymour was an African American holiness preacher who became the central leader of the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles. His ministry was shaped by holiness religion, prayer, expectation of Spirit baptism, and a deep concern for humble Christian life.

In 1906 Seymour's Los Angeles meetings became a major gathering point for early Pentecostal experience. People came to Azusa Street to pray, worship, testify, seek healing, and report speaking in tongues. The revival's interracial character was especially notable in the segregated social world of the early twentieth-century United States.

Seymour matters because Azusa Street became one of the most important launching points for Pentecostalism worldwide. Many later Pentecostal leaders and missionaries traced their inspiration, contacts, or theology back to the revival.

His life also shows the complexity of Protestant renewal: the movement was evangelical and revivalist, but it also crossed racial, social, and denominational boundaries in ways that made it difficult to contain.