Because the ticket went ignored, and Ms. Thomas had failed to appear in court, her license had been suspended. The arresting officer “was going to let me go, after I reasoned with him some,” Ms. Thomas said. “He let me out of the squad car and was just going to tow my car.”

Then another officer arrived, and he persuaded the original officer to go through with the arrest.

“I remember he said, ‘If we let everybody go, there’d be nobody in prison,’” Ms. Thomas said.

She was taken to Atlanta’s Fulton County jail, and she was in jail for three days before a family member found her. Her relatives had been frantic, calling all the local hospitals and police stations. “This is really embarrassing, but I couldn’t remember anybody’s number by heart,” Ms. Thomas said. “I couldn’t call anybody, so I just sat there.”

A judge set Ms. Thomas’s bail at $1,500. Bail is paid at 10 percent. Her family couldn’t afford $150, so Ms. Thomas remained in jail for eight days.

During that time, her name was picked up by several organizations that had banded together for a Mother’s Day initiative last year that would pay bail for black mothers who couldn’t afford it. The organizations, which include National Bailout and the nonprofit Color of Change, eventually paid for over 100 black mothers around the country to leave jail. (National Bailout says they bail out all varieties of black mothers: “queer, trans, young, elder and immigrant.”) Ms. Thomas was one of them.