John J. Fatal

John J. Fatal. Abolitionist and Public Official. , John J. Fatal, a school desegregation advocate and elected official, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, to parents of African and West Indian heritage., While living in Boston, Fatal joined the Boston Vigilance Committee and helped shuttle escaped slaves to Vermont and Canada on the underground railroad. He was also active in a number of fugitive slave cases, particularly the George Latimer affair of 1842. In that case, abolitionists organized a public subscription to buy the freedom of an escaped slave who could easily pass for white. The public was outraged at the actions of the slave hunters, and the episode convinced many New Englanders to support abolition., Fatal joined Joshua Bowen Smith, John T. Hilton, and William C. Nell, among others, in the fight to desegregate and improve Boston's public schools. The struggle to end segregation lasted from 1844 to 1855 and culminated in a lawsuit brought by fellow Bostonian Benjamin F. Roberts against the city of Boston. When the suit proved unsuccessful, Fatal joined an exodus of black parents to Cambridge, where the school system was integrated., By 1852, Fatal was living in this house on Lincoln Street. He worked as a laborer, but in 1863 became a porter at a furniture store in Harvard Square. After the Civil War, he opened his own store at the corner of Cambridge and Prospect streets., In 1870, Fatal became the first African American nominated to a political office in Cambridge. He declined the nomination, however, allowing his friend J. Milton Clarke to become the first African American to serve on the Cambridge Common Council., Despite his protests, Fatal was elected to the council in 1874, but he served only one term before resigning to take a position with Clarke at the U.S. Subtreasury in Boston, where he was in charge of the vaults for twenty-five years. He died on March 18, 1904, at the age of eighty-eight., Related Cambridge African American Trail Markers , J. Milton Clarke and Lewis Clarke, 2 Florence Place , William H. Lewis, 226 Upland Road , Clement G. Morgan, 265 Prospect Street , Joshua Bowen Smith, 79 Norfolk Street , Franklin H. Wright, 40 Magee Street, Sources , Boston Transcript, March 19, 1904 , Cambridge Chronicle, August 29, 1903 (photo) and March 26, 1904