The case of Mrs. Margaret Douglass (1853)"For example, in 1853, a Mrs. Margaret Douglass of Norfolk, Virginia, "being greatly interested in the religious and moral instruction of colored children and finding that the Sunday school where they were allowed to attend was not sufficient," began teaching free black children to read and write in her home. Mrs. Douglass pleaded ignorance of the law, having believed that it applied only to the teaching of slaves, and the mayor announced his intention to dismiss the charge; however, the Grand Jury chose to indict her. In her defense, she demonstrated that teaching free black children to read had been a common practice in the city's Sunday schools for years. The jury's penalty of one dollar was overturned by a Judge Baker, who imposed a month-long prison sentence, "as an example to all others in like cases.""