Octavius Valentine Catto was truly a man for all seasons: scholar, activist, politician, baseball star. He could have been the inspiring black leader Reconstruction-era Philadelphia needed... if he hadn't been murdered.

https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/there-must-come-a-change

Key sources for this episode include Daniel Biddle and Murray Dubin's Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America; Joe William Trotter Jr and Eric Ledell Smith's African Americans in Pennsylvania: Shifting Historical Perspectives; Michael E. Lomax's Black Baseball Entrepreneurs: 1860-1901: Operating by Any Means Necessary; Ryan A. Swanson's When Baseball Went White: Reconstruction, Reconciliation, and Dreams of a National Pastime; and Stephan Segal's "An Unbreakable Game: Baseball and Its Inability to Bring About Equality During Reconstruction"

The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope is a secret society devoted to the idea that that which is least known is best to know. Each episode we share a strange story or amazing fact, and no topic is off limits -- if it's interesting or entertaining, we'll cover about it!

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