Octavius V. Catto

Octavius Catto was a Reconstruction era Civil Rights activist

Smithsonian Institution

Quick Facts

Significance:

Reconstruction Era Civil Rights Activist, Professional Athlete

Place of Birth:

Charleston, SC

Date of Birth:

1839

Place of Death:

Philadelphia, PA

Date of Death:

October 10, 1871

Place of Burial:

Collingdale, PA

Cemetery Name:

Eden Cemetery

When the Civil War ended in 1865, a new battlefield emerged over Reconstruction. Black Americans sought to exercise their rights and direct the change they wanted to see in their city, state, and nation. At the same time, white supremacists did everything in their power to reestablish the antebellum order. Violence ebbed and flowed during the era, but election day was often a flashpoint. Octavius Catto was one of the victims of that violence.

Born free in Charleston, SC in 1839, Octavius moved with his family to Philadelphia, where greater opportunity for Black Americans could be found. He attended the Institute for Colored Youth (ICY), where he graduated as valedictorian in 1858. The next year, Octavius became a professor at ICY, teaching English and mathematics. During the Civil War, Octavius Catto helped recruit Black soldiers for the US Army and presented the regimental flag of the 24th United States Colored Troops, whose motto read “Let Soldiers In War, Be Citizens In Peace.” 

When the Civil War was over, Octavius dedicated himself ensuring that Black people could be “citizens in peace”. He worked with Congressman Thaddeus Stevens to promote the passage of a state law desegregating the city’s streetcars. In addition to his civil rights work, Catto played professional baseball and even founded one of Philadelphia’s earliest professional baseball clubs. 

In 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified, and Black men flocked to the polls to participate in American democracy as voters. However, when they went to cast their vote, they were often met with intimidation and violence by white supremacists. On October 10, 1871, Election Day in the United States, Octavius Catto was on his way to vote when he was confronted by a white man named Frank Kelly. At the intersection of 9th and South Streets, Kelly shot Catto three times, killing him. Kelly was not convicted. 

Like so many other Black Americans during Reconstruction, Octavius Catto was murdered for daring to exercise the rights he had fought to gain all his life. But he was not forgotten. Black Philadelphians worked to upkeep his grave and in the 1890s they sought raise funds to erect a monument to the martyred professor, voter, and athlete. W.E.B. DuBois later wrote “...and so closed the career of a man of splendid equipment, rare force of character, whose life was so interwoven with all that was good about us... a pattern for those who have followed after.” In 2017, a sculpture of Catto was erected at Philadelphia’s City Hall.