Talk:Freedom (American newspaper)

Reviewer Comment

The title of this draft has been disambiguated. If this draft is accepted, a hatnote will need to be added to the primary page to refer to this page.

The primary page is Freedom (magazine).

Regarding the article's name, and the rename provided by the reviewer

I think that referring to the publication as "Robeson magazine" does not accurately describe it, on a couple of grounds.

In the scholarly articles that make up the references, Freedom is mentioned six times as a newspaper, once each as a monthly newspaper, journal, and paper. It is not mentioned as a magazine — except in this Wikipedia article revised title, to which the reviewer changed it. I observe that the Wikipedia article Freedom (newspaper), concerning "a London-based anarchist website and biannual journal... which was formerly a monthly newspaper" has no compunction about tying monthly and newspaper together, rather than describing it as a magazine.

I note that Wikipedia's Paul Robeson article describes Freedom as a periodical, and the Wikipedia article on its successor publication Freedomways describes that publication as a journal.

Also, I think that an exclusive association with Paul Robeson is too restrictive. He is listed last in the Editorial Board of the first issue, not listed at all with the Editorial Board in the second issue. The third issue does not have a staff listing at all, while Robeson listed as Editorial Board Chairman in all of the others that I've reviewed. He was not the editor; that was Louis E. Burnham. The publisher was Freedom Associates.

I understand the difficulty of creating an unambiguous name for the article. The Freedom (disambiguation) article lists two publications under Press:

• Freedom (magazine), a Scientology publication; and
• Freedom (newspaper), a British anarchist newspaper.

So I suggest the following alternatives:

• Freedom (monthly newspaper)
• Freedom (journal)
• Freedom (African-American newspaper)

The above is slightly modified from an entry on the reviewer's Talk page. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 17:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

WorldCat likes "African-American newspaper" not "magazine"

Further to this argument, WorldCat characterizes Freedom's genre/form as, among others, African American newspapers. So it would appear that the best title for the article would be:

• Freedom (African-American newspaper)

References

Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 01:40, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Larrykoen Would you object to using Freedom (American newspaper) as the new article title? Mitchumch (talk) 00:03, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

This is copied from User talk:Mitchumch:

In regards to the title of what is presently titled Draft:Freedom (Robeson magazine): I would accept Freedom (American newspaper), because it is certainly preferable to Freedom (Robeson magazine). However, I am unenthusiastic about this proposed article title.

In further advocacy of the title that I propose, Freedom (African–American newspaper) (although I see that Wikipedia and many other sources are now omitting the hyphenated designation in favor of African American with no hyphen), I note that the article African-American newspapers refers to "the first African-American periodical called Freedom's Journal" in its lead paragraph. The article whose title we are discussing took its name from the name of that periodical (as the article itself notes). The lead of the article on Freedon's Journal states: "Freedom's Journal was the first African-American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States." That is, it gives further emphasis to "African-American."

I think that Freedom (American newspaper) hedges these associations, which would be an unfortunate result of giving the article that title. I think it is more specific and more accurate to use the title that I propose, Freedom (African–American newspaper) (or Freedom (African American newspaper), in keeping with evolving standards). Under either name, I look forward to this newspaper's inclusion in the article List of African-American newspapers and media outlets, which is presently unaware of it.

Thank you for your consideration. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 02:57, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Larrykoen The reason I didn't include "African" in the disambiguation term was to comply with Wikipedia policy.

See Naming the specific topic articles " If there are several possible choices for parenthetical disambiguation, use the same disambiguating phrase already commonly used for other topics within the same class and context, if any. Otherwise, choose whichever is simpler. For example, use "(mythology)" rather than "(mythological figure)".

If there was another page that used Freedom (American newspaper), then I would think your suggested disambiguation would be needed. However, there is only a Freedom (newspaper) which is a British anarchist newspaper. The only term needed to disambiguate these two newspapers is nation of origin, British or American. Adding "African" would be excessive and unnecessary. Mitchumch (talk) 06:24, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Communists at Freedom

(Addressed to Grant Handy and placed on his Talk page, where he removed it 6½ hours later.)

In your recent editing of the 1950–1955 periodical associated with Paul Robeson, Freedom, where you removed the following:

In another characterization, "Freedom paper was basically an attempt by a small group of black activists, most of them Communists, to provide Robeson with a base in Harlem and a means of reaching his public...

-- you wrote as your edit summary, "This 'characterization' has no source and seems just to be something an editor made up. The communism thing adds to my suspicion that this is just some random person taking a jab at these people." Contrary to your edit summary, there is a source, which you left in place in your edit. For your convenience, I footnote here the source of the quote that you struck:

Apparently you did not bother to consult this source before making your edit, mischaracterizing what you struck as "just... something an editor made up," which it is not. I understand your indignation at what seems to appear to you as the tarring of a group of people with a label held to be demonic at the time, an indignation that I share for personal as well as philosophical reasons.

But many of these people were in fact members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and for good reason (see, for instance, Communist Party USA and African Americans). The paper's editor, Louis E. Burnham, had joined CPUSA in the 1930s and was an official after Freeedom closed. W. E. B. Du Bois attacked CPUSA in articles but later his wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois, joined CPUSA in the late 1940's; Du Bois himself joined CPUSA in 1960. Lorraine Hansberry joined CPUSA as a college student. Lloyd L. Brown was affiliated with CPUSA from the 1920's. Vicki Garvin joined CPUSA in 1947.

Finally, I note that in your haste to excise what you found offensive and mistakenly considered unsourced, you quoted a portion of the original material that you halved. Thus, what is left is the following:

The paper offered more coverage of the labor movement than nearly any other publication, particularly of the left-led unions that were expelled from the CIO in the late 1940s... [It] encouraged its African American readership to identify its struggles with anti-colonial movements in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Freedom gave extensive publicity to... the struggle against apartheid."[3]

So when you struck "Freedom paper was basically an attempt by a small group of black activists, most of them Communists, to provide Robeson with a base in Harlem and a means of reaching his public," you also struck

In another characterization, "

-- thereby leaving the quote without an opening quotation mark or any indication of where the "quoted" material comes from. (I put "quoted" here in scare quotes because, by striking the opening quote mark, you left it difficult to determine exactly what's being cited.)

For the above reasons, I am reverting your edit and putting this discussion on the article's Talk page. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 16:34, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

(Addressed to the user Larry Koenigsberg) Hey thanks for all this, you clearly really care and put in the research into this. I was glaringly and obviously wrong on my edit, and it is right on you to revert it. Maybe my edit came across wrong, and but I have clearly walked into and edited a sentence that you care about and are much more qualified to have on the article. I edited it on a whim, and that was clearly wrong of me.

I deleted the text you put on my page because frankly, I don't like the way Wikipedia has messages between users, it's like painting someone's house 😂. I meant to get back to you sooner, but I've been quite busy the past week.

Lots of Love, Grant Handy — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grant Handy (talk • contribs) 00:16, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

References