According to Jesse Olsavsky, vigilance committees in Philadelphia, Boston, and other northern cities constituted the militant, highly organized urban wing of the Underground Railroad. Olsavsky stresses the importance of the interviews vigilance committee members conducted with runaways, interviews that acted as crucial conduits for information, ideas, and strategies for resistance.

Jesse Olsavsky, The Most Absolute Abolition: Runaways, Vigilance Committees, and the Rise of Revolutionary Abolitionism, 1835–1861 LSU Press, 2022

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