The Bible Way Split: Williams Goes to Washington

Thursday, July 7, 1927, Smallwood Edmond Wiliams arrived in Washington, D.C., sent by Bishop R.C. Lawson to establish a church in the nation's capital. Lawson had warned Williams that Washington was "a preacher's graveyard" and "a mission's shipwreck." Though Lawson had been evangelizing the area for some two years, no church had been birthed yet. This discouragement aside, Williams felt positive about going to the capital. He had been to Washington once before, running a tent revival for a pastor on vacation, and had loved it. Returning, he loved it still.

Washington, Williams recalled, was a very clean city, though in ways Washington was like other "small town[s]" in the southern U.S. in its embrace of segregation. Williams learned that his new hometown was more "sophisticated" in carrying out racial separation then, say, Lynchburg (Va.) where he was born. Lynchburg's segregation had been blatant and obvious; Washington's version of the color line cordoned off access with excessive red tape.

Early on, Williams ran into issues when he went to preach on the street. All around, farmers were selling their goods, and people were out and about buying ingredients for the next big southern-style dinner. This setting, rife with eyes and ears, would be a good setting for street preaching. However, open-air rallies, including religious street meetings, required a police permit. It was some time before Williams was able to procure a permit.

In the mean while, he was able to connect with people who had already been reached by the Pentecostal message. Lawson described a small congregation waiting to support their new pastor, but Williams recalls arriving in Washington as an "unknown," eventually meeting "a few souls who had experienced salvation, but were floundering for lack of leadership." Eventually, this small group of migrants from South Carolina became his "nucleus" of support for the establishment of the Bible Way church as well as the musical attraction for his street meetings ("all good singers, every last one," Williams recollected after listing them name by name).

Happy to be provide leadership to his small but growing fellowship of Spirit-filled believers, Williams had an audacity that won him support among his public following. One summer afternoon, as Williams was preaching outdoors, a police officer walked right up to him, ignoring all custom and decorum normally afforded to religious meetings, and asked, "Boy, do you have a permit to hold this meeting?" Williams kept preaching and, without losing his cadence, pulled the permit out of his pocket and handed it to the officer. The outdoor audience "applauded vigorously," appreciating how so small an act effectively shoved the officer's disdain back in his face.

Williams entered the social, civil, and religious life of Washington, D.C., in 1927, and succeeded in estabishing a difficult church plant. Williams's involvement with Lawson, however, began almost a decade before. In our next article, we will look at Williams's beginnings, including his early evangelism in New York.