Lombard Street Race Violence Timelines: The Catto Years

On the morning of August 1, 1842 in Philadelphia, a parade on Lombard Street of over 1,000 members of the black Young Men’s Vigilant Association, commemorating the eighth anniversary of the end of slavery in the British West Indies, was attacked by an Irish Catholic mob. Over three days of attacks, a black church, an abolition hall, numerous homes and public buildings in the black community were looted, burned or mostly destroyed.