Johnny Magee
Reverend Johnny Magee was born September 5, 1900, to Samuel Magee and Nola Thornhill. It seems that his birth was probably somewhere between Monticello and Morgantown, Mississippi. Very little is known of his early life until age 18.
Johnny Magee received the Holy Ghost on January 27, 1919, in Morgantown, almost certainly at the Church of God. He was 18 years old. When W. E. Johnson preached the Oneness message in Morgantown in 1920, John Magee was “clerk” of the Mount Carmel Church of God. As mentioned above, this church accepted the Oneness message and left the Church of God, becoming Oak Grove Pentecostal Church. Brother Magee embraced the new message and began preaching almost immediately, becoming a leading proponent of Oneness in south central Mississippi and southeast Louisiana. He conducted revivals, founded, and pastored churches in Braxton, Mississippi; Bethel, near Tylertown, Mississippi; Inverness, Mississippi; as well as Bogalusa, Louisiana. He would start or pastor churches in Poplarville, Mississippi (Oak Hill Church) and Jayess, Mississippi (Powell’s Grove Church), returning to Bogalusa in 1941, where he would pastor until his retirement in 1972.
The records of First Pentecostal Church in Bogalusa, Louisiana, seem to indicate he pastored there from 1930 until 1936. This conflicts with a newspaper article published in 1972 in the Bogalusa Daily News, on the occasion of Brother Magee’s retirement, which states that he pastored in Bogalusa the first time from 1931 until 1933. The article contains a list of churches pastored by Brother Magee, but there are gaps in the record, and it contains only those churches that Brother Magee “founded or helped to pioneer Two of the seven churches mentioned were founded during the years he was at Haw Pond: Sunny Hill at Mt. Hermon, Louisiana, in 1933; and New Hope at Shivers, Mississippi, in 1934. These could easily have been what we today would call “daughter works” and at any rate fit the typical ministerial habits of the times; that is, pastoring a church did not mean staying in that one spot. It was common for pastors to preach revivals lasting weeks or months and even pioneer churches in other communities.
Louis Morgan states that Johnny Magee did not join the PAW, the organization W. E. Johnson (the first preacher of the Oneness he would have had contact with) was a part of, remaining independent of organizations as did most of the Church of God preachers who embraced the new message and were subsequently dismissed from the COG. Many preachers in those early days had a fear of organizations and creeds. This fear was even more common among those who had been members of churches that had attempted to restrict their following the Holy Ghost, and had dis-fellowshipped them when they did J. W. Magee was ordained by “Pentecostal Elders” in 1924, but there is no record of his joining any organization before 1939.
When Brother Magee returned to Bogalusa, Louisiana, he was instrumental in developing the Bogalusa Bible Conference, which had begun in 1939, into an influential force in the area and into the longest on-going conference of its kind in the United States It has been held annually for 75 years, and still features an emphasis on teaching and discussing the Bible.
J.W. Magee emerged as a leader among the preachers of the area, and after 1939, this translated into organizational leadership. In the PAJC, he served as District Superintendent of the Mississippi District, as well as a presbyter in the Louisiana District. He, along with S.L. Wise and Jimmie Miller, signed A.E. Carney’s PAJC license application in 1943; he also signed his sister-in-law, Roxie Sartin’s, application in 1944. After the merger that created the United Pentecostal Church in 1945, he was elected one of the seven presbyters at the first district conference of the Louisiana District. Johnny Magee died on January 18, 1975.
The following: Personal Thoughts by James F. Nations
Brother Magee spent most of his early adult life in the Morgantown, Mississippi, area and that was only a few miles from the homestead of Felix and Roxie Sartin. It is fitting to state at this point that Brother Magee married Felix Sartin’s sister. Therefore, we see Brother Magee working so closely with Sister Roxie Sartin. As has been stated, my dad, Lonnie Nations, became acquainted with Brother Magee in August 1940, when Brother Magee was holding a meeting, under a brush arbor near Jayess, Mississippi. Dad’s mother and sister had already received the Holy Ghost in prayer meetings, but dad didn’t attend church. However, living out in the county on those hot summer nights, there was nothing to do, so Dad ventured to the brush arbor to see what was happening. After a few nights, conviction got ahold of my dad and he made his way to the makeshift altar under that ole brush arbor. God filled him with the Holy Ghost and later Dad and Brother Magee became very close friends.
Brother Magee owned a farm in Walthall County on the south east corner of Manning’s Crossing Road and the Jayess-Tylertown Road. When Brother Magee returned to Bogalusa, Louisiana, to pastor, he asked my dad to move there and farm for him. Dad did this in the early 1940s for two years.
Most of the pioneers that we talk about are the ones that brought the Gospel to the Corinth-Tupelo area. However, Brother Johnny Magee was very instrumental in pioneering the Gospel to the areas north of Morgantown, Mississippi.
Much of the success of the Mississippi District UPC south of Jackson can be attributed to Pioneer John Wesley Magee. (better known to many as Brother Johnny Magee or J.W. Magee)