When William Seymour Opened the Doors on Azusa Street

In April 1906, William J. Seymour — a one-eyed African American preacher, the son of formerly enslaved parents — began holding prayer meetings in a rundown former stable on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. What happened next scandalized respectable churches across the city. Black and white worshippers knelt side by side. Mexican immigrants prayed alongside Swedish Lutherans. Chinese laborers wept next to wealthy Anglo matrons. A local newspaper called the gatherings "a disgrace," noting with horror that "the color line was washed away in the blood."

Established pastors were appalled. This was Jim Crow America. Congregations did not mix. Surely God would not pour out His Spirit in a converted horse stable, led by a man most seminaries would not even admit. Yet the testimonies kept coming — changed lives, healed relationships, people encountering the living God in ways they had never imagined.

When the religious establishment demanded Seymour explain himself, his answer echoed across the centuries: "The Holy Spirit does not draw any color line."

Peter faced the same stunned resistance in Jerusalem. "You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them!" the believers accused. But Peter could only report what he had witnessed: the same Spirit, falling on people no one expected. And like those early skeptics, the critics fell silent, then glorified God, saying, "Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life."

The Almighty has never respected the boundaries we draw around His grace.