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Octavius V. Catto, 1839-1871
Born Charleston, South Carolina
Octavius V. Catto gave his life in the struggle to secure civil rights for African Americans. Educated at the Colored Youth Institute in Philadelphia, where he later served on the faculty, Catto founded several major civic institutions, including Philadelphia's Banneker Literary Institute and the Equal Rights League. During the Civil War, he worked with Frederick Douglass to recruit African Americans into the Union army. A vigorous advocate for the civil rights amendments of the Reconstruction Era, Catto was shot to death by a Democratic Party operative on October 10, 1871, the same day that African Americans were voting in the first Philadelphia election held after ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment.
Broadbent and Phillips, c 1871 |