Philadelphia Will Pay Tribute to Forgotten Black American Hero With New Monument

On Tuesday, the city of Philadelphia will resurrect the memory of one of its most influential citizens, Octavius Catto, a civil rights activist whose work was instrumental in getting black men the right to vote in 1870, and who helped desegregate the cityโ€™s transportation system. Suggested Reading The Real Tea Behind Tina Knowles, Mathew Divorce…

On Tuesday, the city of Philadelphia will resurrect the memory of one of its most influential citizens, Octavius Catto, a civil rights activist whose work was instrumental in getting black men the right to vote in 1870, and who helped desegregate the cityโ€™s transportation system.

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Cattoโ€™s story has been erased from history booksโ€”a story itself that is not at all uncommonโ€”meaning that many Philadelphians arenโ€™t aware of the man who helped reshape their city and the society they live in.

According to Philly.com, Catto was something of a Renaissance man:

Educator, scholar, writer, pioneering baseball player, and fearless civil rights activist, Catto had fought unflaggingly for an equitable society in the wake of the Civil War. He successfully protested to desegregate Philadelphiaโ€™s trolleys, he fought to pass constitutional amendments enfranchising black citizens, and then he worked to bring those new black voters to the polls.๏ปฟ

Catto was assassinated in 1871โ€”only six years after the Civil War endedโ€”when gangs of armed white Philadelphians took to the streets to prevent black people from voting. That yearโ€™s was the first election in which the cityโ€™s black men could participate.

According to Philadelphia magazine, Catto was shot twice in the back by a white man after sending teachers and students at his school home early that day, lest they encounter any violence. He was 32.

On Tuesday afternoon in Philadelphia, 146 years after he was gunned down two doors away from his house, a monument to Catto will be unveiled at City Hall.

As Philly.com reports, Cattoโ€™s likeness will be the first public monument to honor a specific black American on the cityโ€™s public landscape, and the first statue to go up at City Hall in nearly a century.

Cattoโ€™s statue is officially titled A Quest for Parity and is the work of Branley Cadet, a black artist based out of California.

Cadet recognizes that the site on which the monument will be erected was โ€œtransformedโ€ by Cattoโ€™s work.

โ€œThey fought to desegregate the trolley cars,โ€ Cadet told Philly.com about the civil rights leader and his contemporaries. โ€œThey fought to ratify the 15th Amendment. So the world I live in is very different from the world Octavius Catto lived in.โ€

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney acknowledges that the lack of knowledge about black historical figures isnโ€™t accidental.

โ€œI think Malcolm X was right when he was quoted as saying, Iโ€™m paraphrasing, that the deeds of black people in this country have been systematically removed, the pages have been ripped out of the history books on purpose,โ€ Kenney told Philly.com, adding that respect between different groups isnโ€™t possible without first respecting everybodyโ€™s efforts to improve American society.

โ€œIf you donโ€™t know โ€ฆ about the African-American contribution to Philadelphia or the United States, then you canโ€™t mutually appreciate how everybody contributed,โ€ he said.

Read more at philly.com.

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