Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

“F” is for Fuller, William Edward (1875-1958)

“F” is for Fuller, William Edward (1875-1958). Clergyman. Born in Laurens County, Fuller believed that he had been sanctified in 1895. After reading about a third blessing, the “baptism of fire,” he had another intense religious experience in 1897 when he received the third blessing. In 1898 he was ordained in the Fire-Baptized Holiness Association. Fuller devoted himself to organizing African American congregations for the Fire-Baptized Holiness Association. Within two years he had helped found more than fifty congregations in South Carolina and north Georgia. A dynamic preacher, he claimed to have spurred some five hundred conversions. In 1908 African American members of the association formed a separate denomination, the Colored Fire-Baptized Holiness Church. William Edward Fuller became the new denomination’s general overseer and its first bishop—a position he held until his death.

Stay Connected
Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.