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Transcription: [00:02:06]
--go north as the war approached and as South Carolina's draconian black laws were put into ever-increasing, ever more firm effect.

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It became dangerous to be black in South Carolina at all times, but more so in the 1850s,

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as the regime's commitment to a pos-- slavery,

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defending slavery as a positive good

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and its aggressive stance towards the North helped lead the battle towards secession.

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In the midst of South Carolina's incredibly segregated and well-enforced black and slave codes,

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it would be fascinating to know exactly how Catto's father became a freed man

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and what exactly it entailed for him to have a ministry in Charleston's small, but influential, free black community.

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Nonetheless, at some point in the 1840s,

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well after the racial laws had come down hard on Charleston's blacks,

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the elder Catto decided to move his family to Philadelphia

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which, at the time, was probably the most advanced anti-slavery city in the United States.

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Even in Boston, which was the home of William Lloyd Garrison,

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there was rioting and mobbing, as working class whites allied with old conservatives, took opposition to the abolitionist cause.

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Philadelphia, with its Quaker heritage of absolute opposition to slavery,

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provided something of a haven for free blacks.

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Catto, in his life, and one of the reasons for the dimensions of his tragedy, did everything right.

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He educated himself at the Institute for Colored Youth.

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He spent several years working in the Washington, D.C. area tutoring and getting what he called a postgraduate education,

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although it's not known if he ever received an official degree.

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He then went back to the Institute of Colored Youth in Philadelphia where he became a professor and teacher.

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He joined the Banneker Institute, as well as the Franklin Institute-- two major important Philadelphia scientific and cultural societies.

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The Banneker institute is, of course, is named after Benjamin Banneker, the scientist who-- and surveyor who laid out the dimensions of the early District of Columbia.

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And the Franklin Institute admitted Catto despite his race and over the opposition of some of its other members.

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Not only was Catto interested and a major supporter of early efforts to educate blacks,

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he saw that as an essential necessity as, particularly during the Civil War,

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when it became clear that the problem of reconstruction would be as important as the problem of winning the war,

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he felt that black men and women had to be educated in order to take on the [[challenges?]]--