 They started many new black Baptist churches and soon, new black state associations.Four main groups competed with each other across the South to form new Methodist churches composed of freedmen.They were the African Methodist Episcopal Church; the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, both independent black denominations founded in Philadelphia and New York, respectively; the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (which was sponsored by the white Methodist Episcopal Church, South) and the well-funded Methodist Episcopal Church (Northern white Methodists).