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View definitions for vigilance committee

vigilance committee

noun as in group that watches out

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Example Sentences

Among the earliest: groups of “Rangers,” Southern California horsemen assembled nominally to hunt down Mexican “bandidos” but who, as a vigilance committee, became judge, jury and even executioner themselves.

When they learned that the loggers had finally arrived, members of Sawawo's vigilance committee traveled up the Amônia in their boats.

Therefore, communities would organize their own forces, called "vigilance committees" whose job was to be "vigilant" to protect their own homes and communities.

From Salon

Stephen C. Foster was mayor in the 1850s when a “vigilance committee” he belonged to, a kind of volunteer police force in crime-stricken L.A., tried to lynch an accused murderer.

“Even before the Civil War, Louisiana was infamous for its frequent feuds, street fights, duels, whiskey brawls, vigilance committees and outbursts of violence,” the historian Gilles Vandal wrote.

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From Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.

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