Biography
Lucy Farrow was born around 1851, in Virginia, into slavery. She was a niece of Frederick Douglass, though the details of this connection are uncertain. She grew up in the harsh conditions of the slave system and gained her freedom after the Civil War. She lived in Texas, where she worked as a domestic servant and as a preacher. She was a woman of strong faith and was known for her gift of prayer. She joined a Baptist church, and she was active in the holiness movement. She was soon known as a pastor, an evangelist and a healer.
In the early 1900s, she worked as a governess in the home of Charles Parham, the founder of the Apostolic Faith movement, in Houston, Texas. Parham had a school in Houston and was teaching that speaking in tongues was the sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Lucy Farrow listened to his teaching, and she received the experience in 1905. She was among the first Black people to speak in tongues. She was a woman of intense devotion, and she began to preach the baptism of the Spirit. She introduced William Seymour, a young Black preacher from Louisiana, to Parham. Seymour attended Parham's school in Houston, though he was forced to sit outside the classroom, in the hall, because of racial segregation.
Seymour was invited to Los Angeles to pastor a small holiness church, and he moved there in 1906. He took Parham's teaching with him. When he found that the church would not accept his message, he began to hold meetings in a home on Bonnie Brae Street. In the spring of 1906, he sent for Lucy Farrow to come to Los Angeles. She arrived in April of that year, and she took part in the meetings. She laid hands on the people and prayed for them, and many received the baptism of the Spirit. It is said that she was among the first to pray for Seymour himself to receive it. She was a major figure in the outpouring that began at Azusa Street.
She was a woman of great spiritual authority, and many of those who came to Azusa Street were helped by her ministry. She was also a woman who was a source of humility and warmth. She remained in Los Angeles for several months and then returned to Houston. She had a gift of discernment, and she was called upon to settle disputes. She was also known for her songs.
In 1907, she went to Liberia, in West Africa, as a missionary, with a party of Pentecostal workers. She was among the first Pentecostal missionaries to Africa. She served in Liberia for a time and sought to evangelize the people. The mission was hard and was marked by sickness and hardship. A number of her companions died, and she was forced to return. She came back to the United States in 1908. She then continued to travel and to preach, though her health was poor.
She died in 1911, in Houston, at about the age of sixty. She is one of the unsung women of the early Pentecostal movement, whose work was important but little recorded. She is an example of the importance of the ministry of Black women in the early church. Her life shows how a former slave could become a source of renewal for the church, and how the gift of an ordinary person may be of great consequence.