EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; CLARA BELLE DRISDALE WILLIAMS P/69

  

Today I will continue my series on Evangelical woman who lived in the second half of 1800.In this story I will focus on a woman named Clara Belle Drisdale Williams. She lived from 1885 - 1994. Clara was born to sharecroppers Isaac and Carrie Melinda Moppins Drisdale in LaGrange, Texas.

Clara was first educated in a one-room country school house near LaGrange but in 1901 she entered Prairie View Normal and Independent College (now Prairie View Agricultural and Mechanical University), in Prairie View, Texas. She graduated from the Institution with a certificate in domestic arts, as its valedictorian in 1905. After graduation, she was the head of the Institution's sewing department before moving to El Paso, Texas.

In 1917, Clara married Jasper Williams, a pharmacist in El Paso. Together they ran a drugstore and became parents of three sons, Jasper, James and Charles.

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; JULIA HUTCHINS P/68

In this story I will focus on a woman named Julia Hutchins. She holds a special place in the history of the Azusa Street Revival, for she was the African-American pastor who invited William Seymour to come from Houston to Los Angeles to serve as pastor of the Santa Fe Street Holiness Mission. It was she who locked Seymour out of the church because of his teaching on the baptism in the Holy Spirit. 

Thankfully, however, her story does not end there. She soon repented of this action and became a whole- hearted supporter of Seymour and his teaching that tongues is “ the biblical evidence” of one’s being baptised in the Holy Spirit.

At the Azusa Street Mission Julia was herself baptised in the Holy Spirit and re-affirmed an earlier call to go to Africa as a missionary. Within five months of the beginning of the revival she and her husband, along with their young niece Leila McKinney, left the mission to go as missionaries to Liberia on the West African Coast. They were accompanied by G.W. Batman and Lucy Farrow.

Upon leaving Azusa Street Julia and her colleagues preached their way across the heartland of America to the East Coast. From there they proceeded by ship to Liverpool, England. From Liverpool they sailed to Monrovia, Liberia. All along the way the missionaries faithfully spread the message of Pentecost. 

We know little of Julia’s ministry in Liberia nor how long she stayed; however, we do know that she was one of the first Pentecostal missionaries to set foot on the African Continent. Like many early Pentecostal women, her story simply fades into history. We can assume that when Julia returned to the U.S.A. she continued to minister in the Spirit until her death.

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; EMMA COTTON P/67

In this post I will focus on a woman named Emma Cotton. She lived from 1877 - 1952. Emma was of Creole descent and was born in the State of Louisiana. 

She first appeared in history during the Azusa Street Revival. She was the founder of the Azusa Temple as well as other Pentecostal churches across the United States, Her preaching and involvement in the Pentecostal circuit, as well as her friendship with famous evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson paved the way for women in leadership in the 1900s.

Emma was inspired by “the great awakening of the Spirit.” At the revival she stated that she was healed of weak lungs and cancer that was found in her nose. 

Emma soon met her husband Henry C. Cotton, who worked as a railway cook on a run between Los Angelos and San Antonio. While Henry was away on work, Emma was available to participate in evangelistic work around California. Emma and her husband returned to Louisiana for a period before she was appointed Assistant State Mother of California for her church. Returning to California, Emma held a variety of church services all across the state. She held divine healing services at the Pentecostal Assembly in San Jose in 1916 followed by the establishment of multiple Pentecostal churches in Bakersfield, Fresno, and Oakland.

By 1920, Emma had stepped down from her role as Church Mother to become a full-time pastor for her own church, the Azusa Temple, in Los Angeles. Together, Emma and her husband co-pastored the church through the denomination The Church Of God In Christ (COGIC) but remained independent as a church due to COGIC’s decision to not ordain women. Today, the church is known as Crouch Memorial Church, named after  one of Emma’s proteges, Samual Crouch. To this day the church is an active congregation affiliated with COGIC.

By April 1939, Emma had edited and published a paper called “The Inside Story of the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit - Azusa Street- April 1906.” This paper included details of her eyewitness accounts of events surrounding the Azusa Street Revival as well as an emphasis on the role of women in the church. While many accounts focus on the prominence of men in leadership, Emma wrote about the importance of Lucy Farrow and Julia Hutchins in the success of the revival.

Emma’s bout of cancer returned in 1950 after nearly half a century of reprieve. She died in 1952.

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; MARY JANE MCLEOD BETHUNE P/66

 

In this post I will continue my story on a woman named Mary Jane McLeod Bethune. She lived from 1875 - 1955. As a champion of racial and gender equality, Mary founded many organisations. For instance, in 1924, she was elected president of the National Association of Coloured Women's Clubs.

In 1935, she became the founding president of the National Council of Negro Women in New York City, bringing together representatives of 28 different organisations to work to improve the lives of Black women and their communities.

A friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, Mary became the highest ranking African American women in government when President Franklin Rooseveld named her director of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration in 1936. She remained in that position until 1944.She was also a leader of the president's unofficial "Black cabinet."

In 1940, she became vice-president of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured Persons, a position she held for the rest of her life.

Aditionally, Mary was a businesswoman who co-owned a Daytona, Florida resort and co-founded the Central Life Insurance Company of Tampa. 

Mary died in 1955.

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; MARY JANE MCLEOD BETHUNE P/65

  

In this story I will continue to focus on a woman named Mary Jane McLeod Bethune. She lived from 1875 - 1955. Mary married Albertus Bethune is 1898. They moved to Savannah, Georgia,where she did social work until they moved to Florida. A visiting Presbybeterian minister, Coyden Harold Uggams, persuaded the couple to relocate to Palatka, Florida, to run a mission school. They moved in 1899. Mary ran the mission school and began an outreach to prisoners. However, Albertus left the family in 1908 and relocated to South Carolina.

Mary then moved to Daytona where, in 1904, she rented a small house for $11 per month. She made benches and desks from discarded crates and acquired other items through charity. She then started the Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls. She initially had six students - five gitls and her son.However, within one year, she was teaching 30 girls at the school. After two years of operation, 250 girls were enrolled.

In 1923, Daytona School merged with the co-educational Cookman Institute, run by the Methodist Church. The Institute was the first Black College in Florida. Mary became the president at a time when Black women rarely headed colleges,

 

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; MARY JANE MCLEOD BETHUNE P/64

 

In this story I will focus on a woman named Mary McLeod Bethune. She lived from 1875 - 1955. Her parents were Sam McLeod and Patsy McIntosh. They were former slaves. Mary noticed racial inequality as a child, observing that the Black community had access to less wealth and opportunity. She remembered particularly visiting the home of the Wilson family that had enslaved her mother - where she explored a play house while her mother worked. Mary picked up a book and one of the Wilson girls admonished her with "Put down that book, you can't read." Mary later cited the incident as contributing to her desire for literacy and education.

In 1886, Mary began attending Mayesville's one-room Black schoolhouse, Trinity Mission School, which was run by the Presbyterian Board of Missions of Freedmen. The school was five miles from her home, and she walked there and back. 

She attended Scotia Seminary (now Barber- Scotia College) from 1888 - 1894. And she attended Dwight L.Moody's Inistitute for Home and Foreign Missions in Chicago (now the Moody Bible Inistitute) from 1894 - 1895, hoping to become a missionary to Africa. Told by the Presbyterian mission board where she applied to become a missionary, that Black missionaries were not needed, she planned to teach as education was a prime goal among African Americans.