The Pentecostal movement finds its historic roots in the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, California, USA from 1904 to 1906.

Several years earlier, in 1901, Bible college students at a school founded by Charles Parham in Topeka, Kansas prayed to be baptized with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues (other languages.) Parham moved to Houston, Texas, where in spite of segregation, William Seymour, a one-eyed African-American preacher, was allowed to listen in to the Bible classes. Seymour went to Los Angeles, where his preaching helped spark the fires of the Azusa Street revival.

By May 1906, Seymour was leading the major movement of the Spirit known as the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles. It has been character -ized as an inter-denominational, inter-racial, inter-sex Pentecostal revival, during a time in the United States, in which women and non-whites were not afforded the same civil rights as white men. People from many denominations and races gathered daily to see and hear, to preach and pray, to sing and shout, and to speak in new tongues.

Most Pentecostal demoninations can trace their roots to the Azusa Street revival or were strongly influenced by it.