Black Fire Reader: A Documentary Resource on African American Pentecostalism

This compendium of primary resources reflects the important but often overshadowed contribution of African American believers to the dynamic growth of the modern Pentecostal movement--the fastest-growing segment of global Christianity. The doctrinal statements sermons songs testimonies news articles as well as scholarly treatises included here allow black leaders scholars and laypeople to speak in their own voices and use their own language to tell us their stories and articulate the issues that have been important to them throughout the one-hundred-year history of this movement. Among the constant themes that continue to emerge is their appreciation of an empowering encounter with the Holy Spirit as the resource for engaging the dehumanizing racial reality of contemporary America. This indispensable heritage book of precious primary documents is revolutionary and powerful in expressing how the Holy Spirit moved through hidden cultural racism sexism classism and other isms to spread the Holiness-Pentecostal religion. --Sherry Sherrod DuPree Former President of the Society for Pentecostal Studies Library of Congress Ambassador This remarkable collection is an indispensable resource for students of Pentecostalism and American religious history. We now have in one volume judiciously selected writings not only of African American Pentecostals in all their diversity but also their Holiness antecedents and charismatic offspring. By providing this reader Alexander enables us to move beyond preconceptions and engage their actual beliefs and practices both enriching historical study and providing insight for future ministry. --Henry H. Knight III Professor of Wesleyan Studies Saint Paul School of Theology Black Fire Reader is a groundbreaking historically contextualized collection of rare and engaging primary resources by African American Holiness-Pentecostals from the late 1800s to 1900s. Replete with autobiographical accounts sermons hymns and other rich documents Black Fire Reader is an outstanding compendium of African American pentecostal thought and practice. Students and scholars of black religion in general and African American Holiness-Pentecostalism will appreciate its remarkable breadth and scope. --Karen Kossie-Chernyshev Professor of History Texas Southern University Estrelda Alexander is Associate Professor of Theology at Regent University School of Divinity and Executive Director of the Seymour Pan-African Pentecostal Project. She is author of The Women of Azusa Street (2006) Limited Liberty (2007) and Black Fire (2011).