The One-Eyed Preacher on Azusa Street

In April 1906, a one-eyed Black preacher named William Joseph Seymour stood in a converted stable on Azusa Street in Los Angeles and watched the impossible unfold. Seymour, the son of formerly enslaved parents from Louisiana, had been barred from sitting in the classroom of the very Bible school where he learned about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He had to listen through a doorway, seated in the hall, because of the color of his skin.

But God had other plans for that little whitewashed building at 312 Azusa Street. When the Spirit fell, it fell on everyone. White bankers knelt beside Black washerwomen. Mexican laborers prayed alongside Scandinavian immigrants. Teenagers prophesied. Elderly women who had never learned to read stood and proclaimed scripture with startling authority. A twelve-year-old boy spoke in languages he had never studied.

The Los Angeles Times called it "a weird babel of tongues." But what the newspapers mocked, heaven was orchestrating. In an era when Jim Crow laws dictated who could sit where, the Holy Spirit refused to check credentials at the door.

This is the ancient promise of Joel made visible — the Almighty pouring out His Spirit not on the privileged few, but on all flesh. Sons and daughters. Old and young. Servants and free. When God's Spirit moves, every human barrier becomes kindling for holy fire.