Episode 2 of 2

Courtroom Rescue

Name: Courtroom Rescue
Start: 1851-02-15
Location: Federal Courthouse

When: 15 February 1851
Where: Federal Courthouse
Part of: Boston Vigilance Committee rescues Shadrach Minkins

Activists led by Lewis Hayden stormed the Boston courthouse on February 15, 1851, to forcibly release Shadrach Minkins from federal custody.

Minkins had been arrested by marshals posing as customers at Taft's Cornhill Coffee House. A group of about 20 black activists, including Lewis Hayden, stormed the federal courthouse in Boston to free him, defying the Fugitive Slave Act.

Sources

Shadrach Minkins Wikipedia, revision of 2026-05-08
Boston Vigilance Committee Wikipedia, revision of 2026-04-27

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.