Race and the Assemblies of God Church: The Journey from Azusa St ...

Beginning in the late 1970s, published histories of the movement focused on individual biographies and sociological interpretations. In Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism, Robert M. Anderson broke new ground by examining the social origins of Pentecostalism. He concluded the earliest Pentecostals were among the poor and powerless in American society.¹⁵ Grant Wacker’s Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture, disagreed with Anderson’s thesis and emphasized the role of the middle class in the rise of the movement. James Goff’s Fields White Unto Harvest: Charles F. Parham and the Missionary Origins of Pentecostalism, was the first scholarly biography of a major figure in the Pentecostal movement. Goff’s work, along with Edith Blumhofer’s The Assemblies of God: A Chapter in the Story of American Pentecostalism, reinterpreted the importance of Seymour to the origin of the movement and emphasized Parham’s role.¹⁶

Ithiel Clemmons’ Bishop C.H. Mason and the Roots of the Church of God in Christ, and German Ross’ History and Formative Years of the Church of God in Christ, emphasized the importance of Mason’s pivotal role in the early years of the Pentecostal movement. In addition, David Tucker’s Black Pastors and Leaders provided helpful information on Mason. In the absence of a biography on William Seymour, see Leonard Lovett’s “Black Origins of the Pentecostal Movement,” in Synan’s Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins for information on the leader of the Azusa Street Revival. “William Joseph Seymour: Father of Sixty Million Pentecostals,” a paper presented by James S. Tinney in 1981 to the annual convention of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, contains additional helpful biographical information on Seymour.¹⁷

General information on the people and events in the early history of Pentecostalism can be found in Portraits of a Generation: Early Pentecostal Leaders, edited by James Goff and Grant Wacker. Pentecostal Currents in American Protestantism, Edith Blumhofer, Russell Spittler, and Grant Wacker, editors, shows specific ways Pentecostalism has influenced American religious history. Finally, Stanley Burgess and Gary McGee edited the Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, a very helpful guide to this field of study.¹⁸