Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America

Dan Biddle (left) and Murray Dubin (right) will discuss their acclaimed new book entitled Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America, Temple University Press (2010).

Philadelphia orator and activist Octavius Catto electrified audiences in 1864, calling on free men and women to aid and educate the newly freed slaves. In Tasting Freedom, co-authors Biddle and Dubin profile this charismatic black leader who championed equal rights nearly a century prior to the modern Civil Rights movement.

Daniel R. Biddle is the Philadelphia Inquirer's Pennsylvania editor; he won a Pulitzer Prize and other national awards for his investigative stories on the courts. Murray Dubin, the author of South Philadelphia: Mummers, Memories and the Melrose Diner, was a reporter and editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer for 34 years, until 2005.

The luncheon is at 12:00 noon on Thursday, September 22, 2011, in the Lenape Room of the University Club.