An Annual Tribute to Freedom

In what has become an annual occasion for a nationwide radio audience, James H. Fassett '29 for the third time related the story of Amos Fortune, Negro ex-slave of Jaffrey, N. H., during Brotherhood Week, on February 20 over CBS. Mr. Fassett, who since 1942 has been supervisor of the Music Division of Columbia Broadcasting System, is well known to listeners of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony broadcasts. For 28 intermissions a year his interviews with prominent people in the music world provide interesting backgrounds to the music which has been broadcast.

Mr. Fassett himself wrote the script for the Amos Fortune broadcast. As a boy he read an inscription on an old tombstone in Jaffrey, which made a lasting impression: "Sacred to the memory of Amos Fortune, who was born free in Africa; a slave in America, he purchased his liberty, professed Christianity, lived reputably and died hopefully Nov. 17, 1801, aged 91."

This simple and eloquent memorial led Mr. Fassett to investigate further. Documents filled in the major happenings in Amos Fortune's career: how he purchased his own freedom, then that of three others, one of whom became his wife; how he built a home and a tannery in Jaffrey and left upon his death a fund to promote citizenship - the interest of which is still being used for this purpose in the public schools there. This year Governor Lane Dwinell '28 of New Hampshire proclaimed February 20 as Amos Fortune Day and urged all citizens to consider their obligations of tolerance and good citizenship.

James Fassett was assistant to the Boston music critic, the late Philip Hale, then later became a commentator on opera broadcasts and those of the Boston Symphony. He first joined CBS in 1936 as an assistant music director on the New York Philharmonic-Symphony broadcasts.

Recently during the summer he has conducted interviews and humanized musicians and their music at major European music festivals and America's Tanglewood Festival in Massachusetts.