Margaret Crittenden Douglass

Margaret Crittendon Douglass (born c. 1822; year of death unknown) was a Southern white woman who served one month in jail in 1854 for teaching free black children to read in Norfolk, Virginia. Refusing to hire a defense attorney, she defended herself in court and later published a book about her experiences. The case drew public attention to the highly restrictive laws against black literacy in the pre-Civil War American South.