The most significant of their political efforts at the national level, however, was their struggle in the 1830s and 1840s to persuade the state government to stand up for the rights of Black citizens of Massachusetts who were arrested while traveling or working in slaveholding jurisdictions. Unlike the movement to repeal the Ohio black laws, here the goal was not to repeal racist state laws at home but rather to seek ways of protecting the freedom of Black residents when they worked in other states.
