Rev. Thomas Barclay

Pentecostal leaders Thomas Barclay and George O. Wood, center, stand together. Photo courtesy of Jorge Tobar/RNS

When he was a boy, the Rev. Thomas Barclay noticed a difference between the worshippers of his small Pentecostal denomination and churches he visited of the larger Assemblies of God.

“Why are they all white and we’re all black?” he asked his father.

After a racial divide that lasted for nearly a century, the two denominations, the Assemblies of God and the United Pentecostal Council of the Assemblies of God, have agreed to a new partnership.