God Save Echo Park Pt. 2

Well before Aimee Semple McPherson laid down her own brand of Evangelical churchin in Echo Park, the Pentecostal Movement landed in the area, and from there became a nation wide and international religion.

Although the Pentecostal faith was founded in Topeka Kansas, it was a tiny house on Bonnie Brae St. that brought it to the masses.

"It was at the Bonnie Brae house, built in 1896, that believers set off a movement of exuberant worship that has grown from a scoffed-at sect to the world's fastest-growing branch of Christianity, with more than 500 million participants around the globe. And as Pentecostalism explodes in Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia, the fire hasn't gone out on Bonnie Brae Street."

It was an African American preacher named William Seymour who dropped the good book on babbling believers in Echo Park around 1906. Seriously, shortly after his arrival, churchgoers started speaking in tongues and a wave of gatherers began filling the tiny house. The local newspapers mocked them.

Now, creating such a hubbub about a previously ridiculed religion is one thing. But what impresses me is that William, a black man in the height of racism was able to bring together people across the color line into this small house.

The movement soon grew too large for the Bonnie Brae house and moved to Azusa Street in Little Tokyo and became better known as the Azusa Street movement.

"The Azusa Street movement seems to have been a merger of white American holiness religion with worship styles derived from the African-American Christian tradition which had developed since the days of chattel slavery in the South. The expressive worship and praise, which included shouting and dancing, had been common among Appalachian whites as well as Southern blacks. The admixture of tongues and other charisms with black music and worship styles created a new and indigenous form of Pentecostalism that was to prove extremely attractive to disinherited and deprived people, both in America and other nations of the world.

The interracial aspects of the movement in Los Angeles were a striking exception to the racism and segregation of the times. The phenomenon of blacks and whites worshipping together under a black pastor seemed incredible to many observers. The ethos of the meeting was captured by Frank Bartleman, a white Azusa participant, when he said of Azusa Street, "The color line was washed away in the blood." Indeed, people from all the ethnic minorities of Los Angeles, a city which Bartleman called "the American Jerusalem," were represented at Azusa Street"

"But the Azusa Street Mission is long gone; all a visitor will find in Little Tokyo is a street sign and two plaques. It is in Historic Filipinotown that pilgrims can step on the hardwood floors of history, play the old piano or find a quiet corner to pray in one of the many rooms kept bare of furniture to give guests space to kneel and seek the unseen.

The Bonnie Brae house is owned by the Church of God in Christ and cared for by Sol Calimpusan, known as Sister Sol. Born 54 years ago in the Philippines and raised as a Catholic, she is a 5-foot-1-inch whirlwind of prayer meetings and evangelistic endeavors who is quick to offer a "hallelujah."" The house is located at 216 N. Bonnie Brae St.

Read more about the Pentecostal religion here. More about the Bonnie Brae and Azusa houses here.