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Samuel G. Freedman

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Samuel G. Freedman
Born (1955-10-03) October 3, 1955 (age 69)
Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison
Occupation(s)Author, journalist, professor
Notable workInto the Bright Sunshine
AwardsNational Jewish Book Award (2000)

Samuel G. Freedman (born October 3, 1955) is an American author, journalist, and longtime professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Biography

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Born in 1955 in Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, Freedman was raised in Highland Park, New Jersey, along with his younger brother and sister. His father, David Freedman, co-founded the life science company New Brunswick Scientific (now a subsidiary of Eppendorf). His mother, Eleanor (née Hatkin), was the subject of his book, Who She Was.

A paper boy in his youth, Freedman went on to attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison after graduating Highland Park High School in 1973.[1] After receiving his bachelor's degree in journalism and history in 1977, Freedman went on to work at the Courier News in New Jersey[2] and later the Suburban Trib, a now-defunct subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune. Before publishing his first book in 1990 and gaining his professorship at Columbia University, Freedman was a staff reporter for the culture section of The New York Times.

Freedman has authored multiple nonfiction books, including Who She Was: A Son's Search for His Mother's Life,[3] a book about his mother's life as a teenager and young woman, and Letters to a Young Journalist.[4] He won a National Jewish Book Award in 2000 in the non-fiction category for Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry.[5][6][7] His book The Inheritance: How Three Families Moved from Roosevelt to Reagan and Beyond[8] was a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize. His book Breaking the Line: The Season in Black College Football That Transformed the Sport and Changed the Course of Civil Rights was published in 2013. His book about Hubert Humphrey, Into the Bright Sunshine, was published in 2023.[9]

Freedman has also written the "On Religion" column in The New York Times and formerly wrote the "In the Diaspora" column in The Jerusalem Post.

Freedman served as a judge for the 2019 and 2020 American Mosaic Journalism Prize.[10][11]

In the spring of 2025, Freedman taught his final semester at Columbia, concluding 35 years of teaching—over the years, there were 95 books published by the approximately 675 students who took the class.[2]

Works

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  • Small Victories: The Real World of a Teacher, Her Students, and Their High School, New York: Harper and Row (1990)
  • Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church, New York: HarperCollins (1993)
  • The Inheritance: How Three Families Moved from Roosevelt to Reagan and Beyond, New York: Simon & Schuster (1996)
  • Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry, New York: Simon & Schuster (2000)
  • Who She Was: A Son's Search for His Mother's Life, New York: Simon & Schuster (2005)
  • Letters to a Young Journalist, New York: Basic Books (2006, revised and updated in 2011)
  • Breaking the Line: The Season in Black College Football That Transformed the Sport and Changed the Course of Civil Rights, New York: Simon & Schuster (2013)
  • Into the Bright Sunshine, Oxford University Press (2023)

Views

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Freedman has described white identity as "a source of power and privilege", that has been utilized historically in the United States in "opposition to black progress" (commonly called white backlash). He has also suggested that Donald Trump's administration has used the conservative movement and Republicanism as a vehicle for white identity.[12]

References

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  1. ^ Freedman, Samuel G. "How I Learned Shiva", The Forward, November 29, 2015. Accessed June 27, 2019. "He exuded a kind of sullen charisma that I envied, and that marked us, at least superficially, as very different members of New Jersey’s Highland Park High School, class of 1973."
  2. ^ a b Goldberg, Emma (May 25, 2025). "1 Writing Class, 35 Years, 113 Deals, 95 Books". The New York Times. Retrieved May 25, 2025.
  3. ^ Samuel G. Freedman (2005), Who She Was: A Son's Search for His Mother's Life, New York: Simon & Schuster.
  4. ^ Samuel G. Freedman (2006, 2011) Letters to a Young Journalist, New York: Basic Books.
  5. ^ "Jewish Book World- Winners". 2006-05-24. Archived from the original on 2006-05-24. Retrieved 2020-01-24.
  6. ^ "Past Winners". Jewish Book Council. Retrieved 2020-01-24.
  7. ^ Samuel G. Freedman (2000), Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry, New York: Simon & Schuster.
  8. ^ Samuel G. Freedman (1996), The Inheritance: How Three Families Moved from Roosevelt to Reagan and Beyond, New York: Simon & Schuster.
  9. ^ Muhammad, Khalil Gibran (July 13, 2023). "How Hubert Humphrey Tried to Make Minneapolis, and America, Less Racist". The New York Times. Retrieved July 16, 2023.
  10. ^ Fox, Carrie (2019-02-05). "Freelance Journalists Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah and Abe Streep Named 2019 Recipients of the American Mosaic Journalism Prize". Associated Press. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  11. ^ Schilling, Vincent (2020-02-06). "Cherokee author awarded $100,000 for journalism excellence". Indian Country Today. Retrieved 2023-03-09.
  12. ^ Samuel G. Freedman (July 17, 2019). "In the 2020 Elections, American Jews Must Decide: Will We Become White, or Not?". Haaretz. So Donald Trump has been both the architect and the beneficiary of the rebranding of the Republican Party and the conservative movement as vehicles for white power, white nationalism, and white identity.
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