<P> Despite being called the "greatest orator in America" by Benjamin Rush and one of the best in the world by Bishop Thomas Coke, Hosier was repeatedly passed over for ordination and permitted no vote during his attendance at the Christmas Conference that formally established American Methodism . Richard Allen, the other black attendee, was ordained by the Methodists in 1799, but his congregation of free African Americans in Philadelphia left the church there because of its discrimination . They founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Philadelphia . After first submitting to oversight by the established Methodist bishops, several AME congregations finally left to form the first independent African - American denomination in the United States in 1816 . Soon after, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AME Zion) was founded as another denomination in New York City . </P> <P> Early Baptist congregations were formed by slaves and free African Americans in South Carolina and Virginia . Especially in the Baptist Church, African Americans were welcomed as members and as preachers . By the early 19th century, independent African American congregations numbered in the several hundred in some cities of the South, such as Charleston, South Carolina, and Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia . With the growth in congregations and churches, Baptist associations formed in Virginia, for instance, as well as Kentucky and other states . </P> <P> The revival also inspired slaves to demand freedom . In 1800, out of African American revival meetings in Virginia, a plan for slave rebellion was devised by Gabriel Prosser, although the rebellion was discovered and crushed before it started . Despite white attempts to control independent African American congregations, especially after the Nat Turner Uprising of 1831, a number of African American congregations managed to maintain their separation as independent congregations in Baptist associations . State legislatures passed laws requiring them always to have a white man present at their worship meetings . </P> <P> Women, who made up the majority of converts during the Awakening, played a crucial role in its development and focus . It is not clear why women converted in larger numbers than men . Various scholarly theories attribute the discrepancy to a reaction to the perceived sinfulness of youthful frivolity, an inherent greater sense of religiosity in women, a communal reaction to economic insecurity, or an assertion of the self in the face of patriarchal rule . Husbands, especially in the South, sometimes disapproved of their wives' conversion, forcing women to choose between submission to God or their spouses . Church membership and religious activity gave women peer support and place for meaningful activity outside the home, providing many women with communal identity and shared experiences . </P>

What impact did the second great awakening have on slaves in the southern states