Burgeoning black communities were also taking root in such Northern cities as New York and Philadelphia. In the latter city, minister Richard Allen, himself a fugitive slave, cofounded (with Absalom Jones) the first black abolitionist society in 1787 and the first Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794, for which he ultimately served as bishop. (Jones too founded a church, the African Protestant Episcopal Church.) The black churches became the political as well as religious centers of their communities, providing not only houses of worship but also meeting places where black Americans could discuss the pressing issues of the day. Not surprisingly, the black church played a key role in abolitionist and Underground Railroad activities virtually from its inception. As Charles Johnson and Patricia Smith observe,

The black community played an essential role in harboring fugitives and educating them to the realities...