The Beginnings of African American Pentecostalism

Abstract

African American response to the pentecostal movement began soon after the introduction of the Apostolic Faith to Texas, where the movement experienced its first noticeable success. It spread within the Black community of Houston following the baptism of the Holy Spirit by Holiness minister Lucy Farrow. One of its number, William Seymour, introduced it to Southern California. An early congregation in Houston became the first congregation affiliated with the Church of God in Christ, which, by the mid-1920s, became the largest pentecostal denomination in the state. Toward the end of the second decade of the century, Robert C. Lawson introduced the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World to San Antonio. The story of Black Pentecostalism’s emergence in Texas underscores the importance of African Americans to the larger pentecostal narrative even as it highlights the role of Texas in hosting the early expansion of the Apostolic Faith.