Clapping, dancing and shouts of ecstatic utterances exemplified the Azusa Street Revival of 1906. Held in Los Angeles and led by William J. Seymour, the revival was an outgrowth of Wesleyan theology, William Parham’s third blessing doctrine and African traditions. The religious enthusiasm of the revival played a huge role in the Holiness–Pentecostal Explosion of the 20^th Century. Among those who attended the revival was Church of God in Christ founder Bishop Charles H. Mason who would later consecrate J. Howard Dell of Georgia to the office of COGIC Bishop.

The Bishop J. Howard Dell collection is just one of fourteen collections that are a part of the AUC Woodruff Library’s NEH funded Spreading the Word project. Spanning the years between 1946 and 1992, the collection illuminates the life of one of Georgia’s most influential religious figures. Transcripts, news publications, correspondence and writings included in the collection illustrate and give fascinating insight into Bishop Dell’s personal and ministerial life. The writings include his diaries which reference daily life, spirit filled COGIC worship services, his Poteat funeral home radio broadcast, and the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy. Bishop Dell also writes about the history of the Church of God in Christ in Georgia connecting it to the Azusa street revival.

One part of the collection of interest is the 1973 correspondence between Bishop Dell and Elder George Briley of the Jones Avenue COGIC in Atlanta, Georgia. Both of these men had been staples of COGIC and the Georgia religious community since the 1920’s. The correspondence addressed to presiding Bishop J.O. Patterson of Memphis, TN highlighting a passionate dispute between Bishop Dell and Elder Briley concerning authority and COGIC churches in its Georgia northern jurisdiction are a rich source of COGIC history, polity and theology.

Also of interest in the collection are articles from the COGIC newsletter Focus and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Focus highlights Bishop Dell, COGIC and the relationships between the Afro-American prayer tradition, slave life, the African American church and community. The 1991 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article discusses the COGIC aspect of the Pentecostal explosion and highlights Bishop Dell’s influence in Georgia. The collection also includes a transcript of Bishop Dell’s final hours of ministry. This transcript gives in intense detail Bishop Dell’s final words to family and friends in the last hours of his life and takes the researcher to room 618 of West Paces Ferry hospital where he passed.

The AUC Woodruff Library is excited to have this fascinating collection of such an influential religious figure. You can find the finding aid for this collection here: http://findingaid.auctr.edu/arc/view?docId=ead/auctr.edu/j_howard_dell.xml

We are also excited to inform you that the 373 audio and 350 video recordings in the Bishop J. Howard Dell collection have been shipped to our vendor for digitization. These audiovisual materials contain many of his sermons, radio broadcasts, and television ministry recordings from the 1950s through the 1990s.  We look forward to their return and making them electronically accessible to you though the Atlanta University Center’s Digital Commons!