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He died so others might vote

He was a brilliant young educator, known as an eloquent orator, and was one of the most admired African-American men of his time.

Octavius V. Catto: Slain in 1871
Octavius V. Catto: Slain in 1871Read more

He was a brilliant young educator, known as an eloquent orator, and was one of the most admired African-American men of his time.

He bridged differences between blacks and whites, and worked for change, helping them work together to improve the lives of people of color.

No, this isn't Barack Obama in 2008, but Octavius V. Catto, a voting-rights advocate who was killed on a local Election Day in 1871.

Catto likely would have been proud - amazed, even - to see the streets of Philadelphia on Election Night 2008.

He might have smiled to see black and white people Tuesday night cheering, waving at and hugging each other after Obama became the first African-American to be elected president of the United States.

Catto, who studied Greek, Latin and French, graduated first in his class from the Institute for Colored Youth, which later became Cheyney University. He went on to lead the school, and also was a respected baseball player and a major in the Pennsylvania National Guard.

He worked with white Union League members to recruit black men to join the army's colored troops and fight in the Civil War.

And he used his speaking skills, sometimes on the same stage as Frederick Douglass, in support of the 15th Amendment, which in 1870 gave black men the right to vote.

Catto's work to urge black men to vote in a Philadelphia election on Oct. 10, 1871, ended in his assassination near his home at 8th and South streets.

Black men had voted with few problems the year before, largely because the U.S. marshal in Philadelphia had called out Marines from the Navy Yard - then on Washington Avenue - to protect blacks at the polls, said Andy Waskie, a history professor at Temple University.

But on that Election Day, after reports of beatings and the killing of two black men earlier that day, Catto went to City Hall to ask Mayor Daniel Fox to get troops to protect black voters.

Because black men at that time voted for Republicans, the party of Abraham Lincoln, the Democrat Fox refused, Waskie said.

But at City Hall, Catto ran into Gen. Louis Wagner, a city councilman and Civil War hero, who was commander of the 5th Brigade of the National Guard.

Wagner urged Catto to get his uniform and order black regiment members to the polls.

As Catto headed to his home at 814 South St., he was recognized by two white rioters. One of the men shot Catto in the back. A second shot hit him in the heart, Waskie said.

"It caused an outrage in the city. Both the white community and the black community were outraged," Waskie said.

Author and former Inquirer reporter Murray Dubin, who is working on a book about the civil-rights movement of the 1800s, said that Catto's funeral "was the biggest funeral in Philadelphia since Lincoln's."

Noting Obama's election, Dubin said: "Having lived in the 1800s for the past five years [while working on the book, with co-author Daniel Biddle], I'm just struck at just how far we've come and how remarkable it is that the country has reinvented itself, and so has the black man." *