Freedom was a venture by Robeson. It was named after ''
Freedom's Journal, the first Black newspaper published in the United States. Louis Burnham, the former executive secretary of the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC), was the Managing Editor of Freedom''. Burnham was responsible for getting the monthly started. George B. Murphy Jr. (vice chairman of the
American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born and vice president of the
International Workers Order), was the general manager. The monthly shared office space and staff with the
Council on African Affairs. Each issue cost $0.10; a subscription for a year was $1. When
Lorraine Hansberry, later a
Tony Award-winning playwright but then (in her own description) a confused 21 year old, went to work for
Freedom soon after its founding, she found "an office furnished with two desks, one typewriter and a remarkably enthusiastic working staff of two": Louis Burnham, the editor, and Edith Roberts, the office manager. The periodical became a magnet for primarily African-American
leftist activists and artists, including
Esther Cooper Jackson, former SNYC executive Edward Strong, historian
Herbert Aptheker, members of the
New York Negro Labor Council and members of the Committee for the Negro in the Arts, including
Ossie Davis,
Ruby Dee and
Harry Belafonte. It promoted
African-American culture, showcasing, among others, playwright
Lorraine Hansberry, playwright and fiction writer
Alice Childress (whose novel
Like One of the Family first appeared serially in
Freedom), novelists
Lloyd Brown,
Julian Mayfield, and
John O. Killens, and poet
Frank Marshall Davis. Alice Childress recalled "
Eslanda Robeson bringing in the works of young artists, introducing them to the editor, asking him to give them an opportunity to present their talents in
Freedom." Presciently, in a front page
Freedom column, "
Ho Chi Minh is
Toussaint L'Ouverture of
Indo China," Robeson asked [emphasis in the original]:
"Shall Negro sharecroppers from Mississippi be sent to shoot down brown-skinned peasants in Vietnam—to serve the interests of those who oppose Negro liberation at home and colonial freedom abroad?" Women on the editorial board, and among its contributors, brought a proto-
feminist viewpoint to
Freedom, which published pieces expressing those views. Among these women were
Vicki Garvin, whose article in the first issue began, "If it is true, as has often been stated, that a people can rise no higher than its women, then Negro people have a long way to go before reaching the ultimate goal of complete freedom and equality in the United States." on "the history of the Negro newspaper in America and its fighting role in the struggle for a people's freedom, from 1827 to the birth of FREEDOM." Performers in this pageant included Robeson, his longtime accompanist
Lawrence Brown, the multi-discipline artist
Asadata Dafora, and numerous others. The following year, Hansberry and Childress, an already produced playwright, collaborated on a pageant for
Freedom's Negro History Festival, with
Harry Belafonte,
Sidney Poitier,
Douglas Turner Ward and
John O. Killens providing narration.
Freedom ceased publication after its July–August 1955 issue, which included an appeal for financial support on its front page. Ultimately, the monthly failed due not only to financial difficulties, but also to
anti-communist FBI harassment. Because of
McCarthyism, most Blacks were reluctant to have any association with Robeson or his publication. Although buying a Robeson concert ticket often included a subscription to
Freedom, the FBI photographed attendees and recorded their license plate numbers, which would also especially discourage government employees. State and city governments prevented large venues from hosting Robeson, further limiting concert attendance to smaller facilities such as churches and union halls. ==Legacy==