Caroline LeCount was an educator, Philadelphia civil rights advocate, and patriot who supported our soldiers in the Civil War. “Carrie” LeCount was born on February 26, 1846 to parents James and Sarah (née Beulah). At a time when most African Americans were prohibited from receiving an education, LeCount mastered geometry, trigonometry, Greek, and Latin at the Institute of Colored Youth. During the Civil War and Reconstruction, LeCount helped run the Ladies’ Union Association and sent supplies to the troops. Shortly after her graduation, she became a teacher and eventually a principal. Representing the greatest Philadelphia virtues - determined, academic, and also passionate - LeCount was a force to be reckoned with in the classroom as well as in society. In March 1867 LeCount became Philadelphia’s Rosa Parks when she confronted a trolley driver and personally enforced the integration of our public transportation. When her beloved fiancé Octavius Catto was gunned down while voting in 1871, LeCount wept bitterly over his loss and never married. Exasperated when faced with racism, she had great faith in our American experiment of freedom and equality, declaring in an 1873 interview that “To be intelligent is to understand the laws of the land, and the great feature of our laws is that they make no distinction by reason of color ….” Although she passed away in 1923, eight thousand of her former students and scores of other Philadelphians remembered her with reverence and love. 

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