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Transcription: [00:07:03]
entitled, empowered, and involved in the cultural--cultural life and political life of the nation.

[00:07:09]
Um, After the war-- with the war won --Catto, like most other blacks and the American political system generally, turned to the problem of civil, of reconstruction -

[00:07:20]
that just because blacks were no longer slaves did not mean they had civil rights. He worked and lobbied to pass the three great amendments - the thirteenth through the fifteenth - which guaranteed blacks the right to vote as well as full citizenship and made slavery illegal, now and forever.

[00:07:36]
Locally in Philadelphia, he was one of the pioneers in breaking down the segregated transportation system.

[00:07:43]
And he w-was an an early advocate of passive resistance, with he and his wife, about whom unfortunately we know very little, um, partaking in sit-downs on the street cars and the trolleys in the city,

[00:07:55]
bringing the system to a halt while [[a sump foot]], shame-faced city administration and police department um, de-decided to do, what what wh-what to do with them.

[00:08:05]
Um, eventually the, in the-the city's transportation was desegregated, um, in part to Catto's efforts.

[00:08:14]
The main thing, though, was that Catto was involved in politics and I don't think it's it's -- I-I think that it's fair to say we underestimate how important politics was as an organizing concept to nineteenth century America.

[00:08:26]
It-it-it took up a tremendous amount of their time, not only because it was politically important on issues alone, but it was culturally important as a way of organizing and mobilizing citizens for all kinds of activities centered around elections.

[00:08:43]
Um, Catto as we've seen, had participated in the baseball leagues, but his main attention was creating a black infrastructure [[clears throat]] that would allow black participation in the political process.

[00:08:57]
As I've said, he lobbied for the three great amendments, but he also was involved in local politics as they moved closer to 1871, the first election in which blacks--