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#OnThisDay The Azusa Street Revival began in Los Angeles, starting the growth of Pentecostalism.
Azusa was dedicated to overcoming Jim Crow racial segregation.
As Philip Barnard and I argue in #Pentecostal #Modernism, the study of Azusa matters to ask how this anti-racism arose.
It was not simply speaking in tongues that gave white elites anxiety, but the prospect of mixed-race community. From the first public account of Azusa, in the @latimes
The article's text makes the fear of anti-racism clear.
Even within some aspects of the Holiness movement there was anxiety about leadership passing to American Blacks, like Rev. William Seymour.
By ignoring the social effects of Azusa, #americanstudies and #modernism/ #modernist studies gives itself permission to not think about the mechanisms of how anti-Blackness was, however momentarily, overcome.
