Benjamin Banneker Institute was a literary society for African Americans established in Philadelphia in 1854.
[3] Sarah Mapps Douglass taught evening classes to African-American women at meetings of the Banneker Institute on issues of physiology and hygiene.
[4] William T. Catto was a founding member of the Banneker Institute[5][6] and wrote A Semi-Centenary Discourse: A History of the First African Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.
[7] His son Octavius Valentine Catto graduated from the Institute for Colored Youth and returned to it as a teacher in 1859.
In October 1871, he was shot and killed in election violence targeting African Americans who voted Republican.