Octavius Catto

Octavius Catto

Octavius Catto was an African-American Republican civil rights activist.  Born to a freed slave in Charleston, he moved to Philadelphia as a child.  After the Civil War, Catto joined the Pennsylvania state militia, with the rank of major.

Catto co-founded the National Equal Rights League and was instrumental in Pennsylvania's ratification of the 15th Amendment, which extended voting rights to African-Americans.  Many Democrats resented him for it, and on Election Day in 1871, a crony of the city's Democratic Party boss gunned down Octavius Catto as he walked home from voting.

The funeral, with full military honors, of Octavius Catto was the largest in Philadelphia since the rites for Abraham Lincoln.