Markers of History

Cannonball Trail
Margaret Douglass

Location: City Hall Ave, between Monticello Ave and Granby St, Norfolk, VA 23510

Visited: July 3, 2009, 2:10pm

Transcription of marker: Margaret Douglass, a white woman from Charleston, South Carolina, moved to Norfolk with her daugh­ter Rosa in 1845 and lived near here on the for­mer Barraud Court. She was a vest maker by occu­pa­tion. In June 1852 she and her daugh­ter opened a school in the sec­ond story back room of her house to teach 25 free black chil­dren, both boys and girls, how to read and write. Tuition was three dol­lars a quar­ter. After she was seen walk­ing in the funeral pro­ces­sion of one of her deceased stu­dents, her school was raided, and she was arrested. She argued her own case in court, point­ing out that the wives and daugh­ters of sev­eral court offi­cials taught black chil­dren weekly in Sunday School classes at Christ Church from the same books she used. After being found guilty, she served a month in jail. Later she moved to Philadelphia with her daugh­ter and gained con­sid­er­able noto­ri­ety based on her book­let about her expe­ri­ence in Norfolk that was pub­lished in 1854.

My impres­sions: In order not to get com­pletely wound up about how wrong the world was at that point, I’m just going to thank the city of Norfolk for hav­ing the hon­esty to place a marker to recall a shame­ful part of its history.

Markeroni sta­tus: Direct-logged.