Black churches played a powerful role in the civil rights movement. They were the core community group around which black Republicans organize their partisanship.[67][68] The great majority of the black Baptist and Methodist churches rapidly became independent of the primarily white national or regional denominations after 1865. Black Baptist congregations set up their own associations and conventions.[69] Their ministers became leading political spokesman for their congregations.[70] Black women found their own space and church-sponsored organizations, ranging from choirs to missionary projects, to church schools and Sunday schools.[71]