From The Conversation · Timothy Welbeck · · 1m 40s
Octavius Catto's 1871 Election Day Murder
Philadelphia's Black suffrage leader Octavius Catto was killed during violent election day protests in 1871.
In brief
Philadelphia's Black suffrage leader Octavius Catto was killed during violent election day protests in 1871. Octavius Catto, a Black suffrage leader, was murdered by white supremacists on Philadelphia's Election Day 1871. Originally reported by The Conversation.
Octavius Catto's statue unveiled
Philadelphia installed a 12-foot bronze statue of Octavius Catto outside City Hall in 2017, the city's first statue honoring an individual Black person.
Catto's assassination location
Octavius Catto Way was renamed on Oct. 8, 2026, where Catto was assassinated 155 years ago during Philadelphia's violent Election Day 1871.
Catto's background
Octavius Catto was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1839 to a free Black woman named Sarah Isabella Cain and a formerly enslaved man named William Catto.
Catto's early career
Catto graduated at the top of his class from the Institute for Colored Youth in 1858 and taught English and mathematics there.
Catto's civil rights work
Catto worked with Frederick Douglass to recruit all-Black regiments for the Union Army and co-founded the Philadelphian Pythians baseball club.
15th Amendment impact
The 15th Amendment guaranteed voting rights for citizens regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, re-founding the United States as a multiracial democracy.
Philadelphia's voting restrictions
Philadelphia's Constitution of 1776 restricted the vote to freemen, defined as those who were twenty-one years old, had lived in the state for one year, and paid taxes.
Election Day violence
On Election Day 1871, armed mobs harassed Black neighborhoods, attacked residents, and closed polling locations in Philadelphia.
Catto's murder
Around 3:30 p.m., Catto was fatally shot by Frank Kelly, a political operative who opposed Black suffrage, near his home in Philadelphia.
The takeaway
Octavius Catto, a Black suffrage leader, was murdered by white supremacists on Philadelphia's Election Day 1871.
