Talk:Lester Rodney

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What specifically is wrong with this article? It is documented and verifiable.

I wrote this entry with the help of Lester Rodney himself. I spent 2 years researching Lester and the Daily/Sunday Worker for my master's thesis, and have done subsequent research on the topic, including many conversations with Lester and his late wife, Clare. If there is something more that the moderators would like to see, please give me some explicit directions and I will see what I can do. I have not only read everything there is published about Lester, I have his ear, so to speak - I am able to call him or email him whenever I want, so he and I can work on whatever will make this article better. I am committed to making the world knowledgeable about Lester Rodney and his contribution to the desegregation of major league baseball, so whatever Wikipedia wants, I will do that. And given the recent controversy concerning credentials, my master's thesis is in the library at Clemson University and is easily findable in the Library of Congress online catalog. I also have other publications concerning Lester Rodney and the Daily/Sunday Worker I can cite for you if you want, including publications with Chris Lamb, professor of Communications at the College of Charleston, with whom we compare the Communist newspaper coverage of baseball with the black news coverage. So whatever will get this "starter" tag changed, I will do it, just let me know. I have had a Wikipedia account for a while, so email me or leave a comment here, I check this page every so often for comments. This is the only entry I have on here, so I need a little help in doing things like this. Kelly E. Rusinack Kelelain 16:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The 'Or' template will flag your article as being "original research", which would certainly qualify if the above is true. Tidywave 17:41, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

What is an 'Or" template? And how do I go about that? Thanks for the info! Kelelain 05:37, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Referenced article

I have referenced the article to Irwin Silber's biography, Press Box Red, so I think the above discussion of "original research" is now moot. Dwalls 04:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

But it's not Silber's research, it's mine. I worked with Silber for his book, Lester had him consult me, also, though Silber is an old friend of Lester's. If anything, then, reference it to my Master's Thesis, since it is an extension of my work. I just don't think it's fair for other people to get credit for hard work I've done. I can show you the emails between me and Lester to put this biographical entry together. So it's not Silber's work, and I don't know why you would attach it there when he is not associated with this particular article. Kelelain 00:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, after reviewing your references, they were mostly wrong. For one, I wrote the exact wording that is in this article, AND I attached my name to the first appearance of the article, which was then erased. I fought to get Lester's bio put back on here, and it was put back with Wiki edits, but still MY words, not Mr. Silber's. My thesis came out in 1995 -- it was researched from 1993-1994. NO ONE, including Mr. Silber, except Mark Naison and I was doing this research. So you need to research the earliest mentions of this information, not to mention, the person who actually wrote the article expressly for Wikipedia. In fact, I will find my thesis and grab MY page citations to both my own works and Dr. Naison's, because that is more relevant here. Though, I will add, 99% of this article was written by me and Lester together, by email, on 24 April 2005, with minor edits on 28 and 30 April 2005. I would appreciate it if, in the future, I am contacted, considering that I started the "discussion" on this page and made it clear that it is MY original work. If Mr. Silber is cited, then so should everyone else who used my thesis as a reference, it's considered to be the definitive work on the Worker's campaign (see Henry D. Fetter, "The Party Line and the Color Line...," Journal of Sports History 3:28 Fall 2001, p. 398, fn. 38).Kelelain 00:57, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Dear Kelelain, I don't think you are familiar with the policy "Wikipedia: No Original Research." Tidywave tried to point that out to you above. As I noted, I was simply trying to protect the article from the possiibility it could be criticized and deleted as primary or "original research." No one is trying to deny you credit for your research. I did not delete the reference to your MA thesis, for example. You posted the original article in April 2005. In the two and a half years since, you have not troubled to reference the article, despite the fact that that is a basic requirement of a Wikipedia article. Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia or tertiary source, is looking for references to reliable published secondary sources (that doesn't include personal and unpublished letters, even those from the subject himself). It is also a fact that Lester Rodney worked closely with Irwin Silber, an old friend of his, as Silber wrote his biography. You have a proprietary view of this Wikipedia article that is contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia, which encourages everyone with a contribution to make to participate in improving any and all articles. You should assume that people are working in good faith with their edits, until proven otherwise. I have no personal stake in this other than acknowledging the accomplishments of a noteworthy person. Take a step back, and I think you will see we share a common interst and purpose here. Dwalls 03:03, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

As there has been no further response from Kelelain on the issue of primary sources, I have taken out references to unpublished personal letters, in compliance with the Wikipedia policy on "no originial research," and reinstated references from standard sources. Dwalls 01:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

There was no further response because I am no longer arguing with a hypocrit. Your comments to me on my page were not only unfounded, they were offensive. I don't know why you think you are somehow better than me and have some right to patronize or psychoanalyze me (incorrectly, again), but my guess is that it is because I found your citations to be incorrect and vague. This entry is a work in progress, as are all Wikipedia entries, so I will get the correct page citations to my work in time, but you need to take YOUR ego out of this -- I was already working with the administrators on this entry, thank you, and they told me to do something I couldn't figure out how to do. This article is so far from my original version, and I really don't care as long as there is 1) AN entry for Lester, and 2) an ACCURATE one at that. I don't know who you think you are to insinuate that I was using Wikipedia to increase my body of work, because my Ph.D. dissertation has NOTHING to do with sports, baseball, Lester Rodney, Communism, or anything that is anywhere near my master's thesis, so obviously I don't care to increase my work in this topic anymore than what I have going into print already. I do not want to see one more comment to me from you that insults me for trying to get an accurate entry on here for Lester. In fact, I don't want to see one more comment from you, period, after what you said to me on my page. I am well aware of the rules, and had to provide accurate citations to replace your inaccurate and vague ones. Over time, this will ALL get sorted out, hopefully not by me.Kelelain 02:48, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

FBI

This article neglects to mention Hoover's obsession with the subject. Pity since it's somewhat fascinating and now documented. https://sports.vice.com/article/j-edgar-hoover-was-a-massive-ass

(Feel free to read that is, hey, I don't want to write this, someone else should though.) 72.201.250.152 (talk) 17:44, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Funny story: this is how I found out Lester Rodney was still alive after I defended my thesis & was preparing my research to present a conference paper. My thesis advisor suggested I do a FOIA request on Lester, so I did. It came back telling me I needed Lester's permission. I asked my professor what that meant. He said, it means Lester Rodney hasn't died yet. This being in the days before the internet was big, my professor got on LIST-SERV & eventually found someone who figured out where Lester was. I finally got to meet him in Brooklyn for the 50th anniversary of Jackie breaking the color barrier. We corresponded for many years, until a few years before he died. I was very happy that my research became well-known enough that Lester was given some long-overdue recognition for helping to bring about some change. Thanks, FBI, for denying my FOIA request. Kelelain (talk) 18:43, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

A couple of confusing statements

"He leveled much of this criticism at Branch Rickey, the general manager of his beloved Dodgers..." gives the impression that Rodney was a critic of Rickey over an extended period of time. The article also says, though, "Rodney served in the South Pacific in World War II...." Rickey didn't take over the Dodgers until after the 1942 season, though, and he agreed to offer a contract to Robinson before the Japanese signed their formal surrender. So when and how did Lester serve, when did he criticize Rickey, and how was that transmitted (if he was writing from the South Pacific.

The article also says, "Rodney's paper had touted Robinson’s abilities for nine long years leading up to this event...." Nine years before Robinson's signing would be 1936, when Robinson was 17-years old. Robinson was an all-around athlete as a high school student, so it wouldn't be unusual for his name to pop up in an article about some competition, but the article should make clear how he was touted with respect to breaking baseball's color line.Arnold Rothstein1921 (talk) 13:11, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Though I was the original author of this entry, I've tried to keep my hands off it as it's been revised many times, so as to not put the influence of one person on the entry. However, if you read either my MA thesis or Mr. Silber's book, Lester's story becomes more clear. The Daily Worker & its Sunday edition, the Sunday Worker, wrote *daily* on this topic. I printed every article I found, from 1932 thru 1952, that mentioned racial issues or racism in baseball in their paper - I ended up with thousands of articles. It was a daily topic of discussion. So your confusion over Rickey confounds me. That's every single day for 6 years, and you don't think that's a lot of criticism? They did more than just talk, too. They had petition drives; the Worker teamed up with the People's Voice journalist Joe Bostic to force Rickey to give 2 Negro League players a try out; they picketed MLB games. They did a lot more, I'm just tired of typing. Socialist members of NY state & NYC city council introduced, and helped get passed, legislation making discriminatory hiring practices illegal, and MLB was their first target. The Worker had the loudest - and often loneliest - voice in all this outside the black press.

I forget when Lester was drafted, but he wasn't the only sportswriter for the Worker. While he was away at war, the sports section kept up the pressure on Rickey. So did the state of New York & NYC. Rickey's assertion that he came up with this on his own wasn't believed *in his time* - the day Robinson played his 1st game in Brooklyn, many of the mainstream journalists came up to Lester in the Dodgers' press box & congratulated HIM. They knew it had something to do with him.

As for Robinson, that is reference to a specific article from my research. Robinson was a 4-sport stand-out athlete in high school. He caught the eye of a California Communist sportswriter, who passed on the story to Lester. Lester ran it, as evidence that black athletes can be superior, not just equal, to their white counterparts, when given equal opportunity. It wasn't in respect to breaking the color barrier - they would've had to have been psychics to have done that! No one knew AT THAT TIME that baseball would even integrate, let alone how. Your statement is asking the impossible - asking him to know the future! Lester was no psychic. He touted Robinson as a black sports superstar, period. This was at a time when the philosophy was, "blacks aren't included because they aren't good enough to be included." Rodney's point was, yes they are. Robinson played 4 sports, and baseball wasn't even his favorite, so assuming he would integrate baseball when he was a young man was ridiculous.Kelelain (talk) 18:24, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Should he be described at some point as an editor?

His New York Times obituary calls him the sports editor of the Daily Worker. 68.193.85.175 (talk) 06:26, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

I rectified that - like I said, I've taken a largely hands-off approach to this article for years now, but some of the more recent edits contained non-factual information and poor grammar. The fact that Rodney was the editor from the day he took the job was missed, also. I added that back in. Kelelain (talk) 23:20, 4 February 2024 (UTC)