Fellow Travelers: The Fight to Desegregate Philadelphia’s Streecars After the Civil War

Posted by on Oct 21, 2024 in | Comments Off on Fellow Travelers: The Fight to Desegregate Philadelphia’s Streecars After the Civil War “When a nation suffers as ours does, from the misfortune of having two races . . . one long civilized, the other emerging from the shades of barbarism . . . there is much in the relations between them that must be left to the lessons of experience and the tribunal of public opinion.” And so, Judge John Hare of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas ruled that a Black man was not entitled to...
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“Without Fear and Without Reproach”: Octavius V. Catto and the Early Civil Rights Movement in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Feb 5, 2021 in | Comments Off on “Without Fear and Without Reproach”: Octavius V. Catto and the Early Civil Rights Movement in Pennsylvania On Tuesday, September 26, 2017, the City of Philadelphia unveiled a monument to Octavius V. Catto in a ceremony at the southwestern apron of City Hall. Catto was a cornerstone figure in Philadelphia’s early civil rights struggle — a recruiter of an African American militia during the Civil War, an instrumental figure in the victory to desegregate Philadelphia’s horse-drawn streetcars, a...
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Painted With Pride in the U.S.A.

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Painted With Pride in the U.S.A. Although not a sketch artist like William Forbes and Alfred Waud, who drew scenes from the battlefield, African American painter David Bustill Bowser (1820–1900) is considered a Civil War artist – but for a much different reason. Active in Philadelphia from 1844 to 1889, he painted portraits of abolitionist John Brown and President Abraham Lincoln. Most important, he painted the regimental...
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