Jan. 10, 1854, Judge Richard H. Baker wanted to make an
example of Mrs. Margret Douglas for having the audacity to teach free Black children
to read, so he gave her a month in jail, which he considered lenient because
she was a woman.
Douglas had been arrested in May of 1953 for the depraved educational
crime when two Norfolk policemen entered her classroom. They took her and her daughter
and the 25 children to the mayor's office where she was told her teaching was
illegal, she argued then that she was only doing what the church was doing. The
mayor released everyone, and Douglas thought the incident was over. She sent her
daughter to visit family in New York for the summer. Then in June the city of
Norfolk sent Douglas a summons to appear in court for her crime.
In November she reported to the court and functioned as her own attorney.
Her defense was mostly based on the fact the Christ Church was teaching the
same lessons she was. While this was entirely true the jury did not think much
of it and the jury found Douglas guilty and their recommendation was a fine of
$1. The judge postponed sentencing until January.
At the sentencing, Judge Richard Baker went over Douglas’s
defense and stated he found it all improper and stated that the church was only
teaching the necessary moral teachings and that helping free Blacks become
literate was a danger to everyone in the community. In his sentencing, Baker
defended slavery as part of the natural order and railed against “Northern
radicals” for their interference in Southern life. He then told Douglass how he
was tempted to give her the full sentence of a $100 fine and six months in jail
but because she was a woman he had determined one month was enough to show the
public not to violate the laws of Virginia.
The newspapers of the time were not kind to Douglass. They
described her as a “dangerous white woman” and an “intrepid female.” The
Norfolk Argus bid her good riddance by writing, “Let her depart hence with only
one wish, that her presence will never be intruded upon us again.”
Upon release, Douglass moved to Philadelphia with her daughter
and wrote a book on her experience and defending her actions. In her memoir of
the experience, Douglass mentioned how she believed Caucasians were superior to
Blacks. In court, she had admitted to previously owning a slave and would not commit
to never doing so again. However bold Mrs. Douglass was her case is primarily
representative of the White Supremacist Culture of the antebellum south even in
the cities
