Fatima was a pioneering educator in Liberia, West Africa. After completing her education in the United States, she returned to Liberia in 1946, where she contributed much to the cultural and social life of the country. Born into a family of African royalty, Massaquoi’s father Momolu Massaquoi sought to give his favourite child, and only daughter, the very best education. She went with him to Hamburg in 1922, where he was a Liberia's consul general in Hamburg. Receiving her primary school education at St. Anschar Höhere Mädchenschule, Massaquoi quickly mastered German. Being part of the first black diplomatic family in Germany had always been challenging, but with the rise of the Nazi regime, Massaquoi's father began fearing for her safety. With the assistance of friends, he helped her relocate to the United States to avoid the racist Aryan policies and restrictions placed on women. In 1937 she moved to the United States and experienced the racial segregation and Jim Crow laws of the Southern States. She first attended Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, graduating in sociology. Two years later she moved to Fisk University in Nashville earning two master's degrees, first in sociology and then in anthropology in 1944. She assisted her professor, Mark Hanna Watkins, in his understanding of the Vai language, cooperating with him in compiling a Vai dictionary. She accepted a fellowship as a linguistic advisor, after her father died in 1938. In 1940, Massaquoi finished writing an autobiographical account of her early life as a tribal child, her life experiences with Europeans and education in Germany and Switzerland, and impressions of America. Watkins told her the English was too poor for publication, but later he claimed in a 1944 letter that she had written the account upon his insistence. While awaiting the editing, Massaquoi continued helping the school prepare a dictionary on the Vai language, teaching cultural dance and language, but was unhappy with the arrangement which paid only a small sum. When she attempted to retrieve her manuscript, Watkins refused and she sued the university for its return and to bar them from publishing her works. In 1945, she won a permanent injunction against Watkins, Dr. Thomas E. Jones, president of the university, and Fisk University prohibiting them from publishing or receiving any financial rewards from any publication of the work. Massaquoi felt that she had been "conspired against" because she was foreign and a presumption that she did not have the strength to fight for her rights. She returned to Liberia in 1946, immediately beginning collaboration to establish a university there, which would become the University of Liberia. Massaquoi served as the director, later dean, of the Liberal Arts College. In 1962 Massaquoi founded and directed a program for African Studies, which would evolve into the Institute of African Studies at the University and she co-founded the Society of Liberian Authors and worked towards standardization of the Vai script During her term at the university, Massaquoi succeeded in overcoming the requirement that students should adopt foreign names rather than keeping those of their indigenous families. In connection with this, when she married Ernest Freeman on 26 July 1948, Massaquoi adopted his tribal name Fahnbulleh, calling herself Fatima Massaquoi-Fahnbulleh. Her husband also changed his own name back to Fahnbulleh. In the late 1960s, Vivian Seton, Massaquoi's daughter, had the autobiographical manuscript microfilmed for preservation. After Massaquoi's death, her writings and notes were rediscovered, edited and published in 2013 as The Autobiography of an African Princess.

click here