Social reformers, particularly, have used Freedom as a springboard for change. Says Cedric Hendriks, associate director of the Court Services & Offender Supervisory Agency in Washington, D.C., “Freedom is an important publication that serves the cause of human rights by bringing to the public issues that need to be thought through, thought out, debated and resolved. Freedom's influence in society has been that of a constant organ for the expression of ideas that are provocative, that are interesting, that are challenging....”

But such praise has not come without a price; Freedom has had to withstand many efforts to block its human rights investigations by vested interests seeking to silence critics and protect the status quo.

Yet Freedom persists, for as Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., declared when championing civil rights in 1960s America, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”