Contextualizing Octavius Catto: Studying a Forgotten Hero Who Bridges the Past and Present

Autor/in	Jay, Lightning Peter
Titel	Contextualizing Octavius Catto: Studying a Forgotten Hero Who Bridges the Past and Present
Quelle	In: Social Education, 84 (2020) 6, S.342-347 (6 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0037-7724
Schlagwörter	African American History; United States History; Civil Rights; Racial Discrimination; History Instruction; High School Students; Inquiry; Active Learning; Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Bürgerrechte; Grundrechte; Zivilrecht; Racial bias; Rassismus; History lessons; Geschichtsunterricht; High school; High schools; Student; Students; Oberschule; Schüler; Schülerin; Studentin; Aktives Lernen
Abstract	Octavius Catto was one of the only Black members of Philadelphia's premier scientific organization, the Franklin Institute; principal of the city's foremost school for African Americans, the Institute for Colored Youth; and founder of the Pythians, the baseball team that went undefeated in the Negro league and ultimately crossed "the color line" to play against white teams nearly 50 years before Jackie Robinson was born. Catto was also a civic leader, who helped form a Civil War recruitment committee to sign African Americans up to fight for emancipation, and became a major in the Union army. He helped desegregate Philadelphia's streetcar system (resegregated 25 years after his death by "Plessy v. Ferguson") and advocated for the right to vote through the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment. He was murdered in 1871 on the way home from voting. Studying the nineteenth-century educator and civil rights leader Octavius Catto can help students move beyond the simplistic U.S. narrative of racial progress to a more complex understanding of race and resistance in America. Research shows that U.S. history curricula and teachers consistently reduce the topic of racism in America to a simplistic narrative of racial progress: "Things were bad, but they got better." The resonance between Catto and Martin Luther King, Jr. disputes the idea that U.S. history is a relatively straightforward march towards equality. King's fight for what Catto had already won highlights the way racial equality regressed between Catto's and King's lifetimes. (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	National Council for the Social Studies. 8555 Sixteenth Street #500, Silver Spring, MD 20910. Tel: 800-683-0812; Tel: 301-588-1800; Fax: 301-588-2049; e-mail: membership@ncss.org; Web site: http://www.socialstudies.org
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01