Octavius Catto

Octavius Valentine Catto

• High School Institute for Colored Youth

• Born February 22, 1839 in Charleston, SC USA
• Died October 10, 1871 in Philadelphia, PA USA

Biographical Information

Octavius Catto was an American civil rights activist who is also credited as being an early pioneer in black baseball. He was the founder and one of the leading players of the Pythian Baseball Club in Philadelphia, PA throughout the 1860s mostly as a shortstop. He played on integrated baseball teams with white players who were a part of his equal rights movement. He is credited for popularizing baseball among black civilians in Philadelphia, which would later become a hotspot in the Negro Leagues years down the line.

Born a free man in the south, he was a student and later a teacher at the Institute for Colored Youth, Philadelphia's first high school for African-American students. He was an outspoken supporter of the Union cause in the Civil War and even after the war encouraged young black men to join the Army to improve their social status and to promote civil rights. He himself was an officer in the Pennsylvania National Guard. In 1864, he became founding president of the Pennsylvania Equal Rights League and worked on promoting the passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments. He was the first black member of the Franklin Institute, an important intellectual society at the time. He then fought successfully for the integration of the city's streetcar system, which African-Americans were prohibited from using.

Catto was murdered in Philadelphia on October 10, 1871 by a white man named Frank Kelly. Kelly claimed Catto pulled a gun on him first and the court declared Kelly not guilty of murder.

In 2017, the city of Philadelphia erected a statue in his honor just south of City Hall.

Further Reading

• Shakeia Taylor: "Octavius Catto, Activist/Educator/Abolitionist/Player", The Negro Leagues, mlb.com [1]

Related Sites

• Octavius Catto at the SABR Bio Project