Key was a founding member and active leader of the American Colonization Society (ACS), whose primary goal was to send free blacks to Africa. Though many free blacks were born in the United States by this time, historians argue that upper-class American society, of which Key was a part, could never "envision a multiracial society". The ACS was not supported by most abolitionists or free blacks of the time, but the organization's work would eventually lead to the creation of Liberia in 1847.