In 1851, members stormed Federal marshals and freed Shadrach Minkins, a slave who escaped from Virginia, and who had been captured in Boston.
White and black members of the Boston Vigilance Committee freed and hid him, helping him get to Canada via the Underground Railroad.
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Walker was an abolitionist who in 1851 collaborated with attorney Robert Morris and activist Lewis Hayden of the Boston Vigilance Committee to gain the release of Shadrach Minkins, a fugitive slave from Virginia who had been arrested in Boston by US Marshals under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.