Octavius Catto
He organised Black voters in Philadelphia. On Election Day 1871 he paid for it.
Listen to this place’s story in Peplos.
How the story begins
On the last day of his life, Octavius Catto took twenty dollars out of the bank to buy a gun. The twelve feet of bronze here at City Hall are for him. They went up in 2017. He was thirty-two: a teacher, a major in the National Guard, a ballplayer. Four years earlier he and his fiancee, Caroline LeCount, had fought to open Philadelphia's streetcars to Black riders, ninety years before Montgomery.
The rest is in the app. Peplos plays the full story when you reach the place. You can also listen ahead of time.
Visiting
On the plaza at City Hall, open at all hours, free. A state marker for Catto is about a mile south at 812 South Street.
Sources
- Murder of Octavius Catto, Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia
- Who is Octavius Catto?, WHYY, 2017
- Octavius V. Catto marker, ExplorePAHistory
- Hardballs: the life and legacy of Octavius Catto, Illegal Foreign Object, 2023
- 1871: Octavius Catto assassinated, Mississippi Today
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