One-hundred-and-sixty-five years ago, a group of abolitionists stormed a Boston courthouse to rescue a runaway slave who was in jeopardy of being sent back to the South. Now, the story is being retold with a modern twist — on social media.

To mark Black History Month, the Boston African American National Historic Site has turned to 140-character tweets to bring alive the story of Shadrach Minkins.

“This was a really big deal,’’ said Shawn Quigley, a guide with the historic site, which is part of the national parks system. “We thought that it was important to tell the story this way because it’s such a fascinating narrative.

“It speaks to our site, our story, and something that is not as well known as the rest of Boston’s history,’’ said Quigley, who is posting the tweets.

A decade before the start of the Civil War, Minkins escaped his owner in Virginia and sought refuge in the North.

His time as a free man in Boston was short-lived, however. On Feb. 15, 1851, 10 months after he arrived, two officers showed up at the coffee house where Minkins worked as a waiter and took him into custody, dragging him to the nearby courthouse.

The plan was to return Minkins to Norfolk, Va., under the revised Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

But a group of abolitionists, both black and white, called the Boston Vigilance Committee had a different plan.

After Minkins was apprehended, the abolitionists flooded the courthouse. They caused a commotion and then physically carried Minkins away from the building after a scuffle with officers.

“The courtroom door has been breached! The crowd have stormed inside and are beginning to fight officers!’’ Quigley tweeted Tuesday. “The crowd has emerged and Shadrach is with them! His clothing is torn but he appears OK.’’

After Minkins was rushed from the scene, he was hidden, with the help of members of the committee, in a Beacon Hill property. The abolitionists were then able to help him escape north to Canada using the Underground Railroad, the network of supporters and stopping places that helped slaves escape.

The journey to freedom took Minkins about a week, said Quigley.

Quigley began tweeting about Minkins’s court appearance and subsequent getaway on Monday evening. He said he planned to tweet five times, on average, per day, for the next week, fleshing out the details through text and archived photos. The tweets will take the voice of a reporter recounting everything that unfolded, from the moment of Minkins’s initial arrest to his eventual freedom.

“This allows us to look at it through the lens of how it would be reported if something like this happened today,’’ Quigley said.

Steve Annear can be reached at steve.annear@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @steveannear.