Search Help

How does this work?
There are many ways to search the collections of the Freedom Archives. Below is a brief guide that will help you conduct effective searches. Note, anytime you search for anything in the Freedom Archives, the first results that appear will be our digitized items. Information for items that have yet to be scanned or yet to be digitized can still be viewed, but only by clicking on the show link that will display the hidden (non-digitized) items. If you are interested in accessing these non-digitized materials, please email info@freedomarchives.org.
Exploring the Collections without the Search Bar
Under the heading Browse By Collection, you’ll notice most of the Freedom Archives’ major collections. These collections have an image as well as a short description of what you’ll find in that collection. Click on that image to instantly explore that specific collection.
Basic Searching
You can always type what you’re looking for into the search bar. Certain searches may generate hundreds of results, so sometimes it will help to use quotation marks to help narrow down your results. For instance, searching for the phrase Black Liberation will generate all of our holdings that contain the words Black and Liberation, while searching for “Black Liberation” (in quotation marks) will only generate our records that have those two words next to each other.
Advanced Searching
The Freedom Archives search site also understands Boolean search logic, specifcally AND/+, NOT/-, and OR operators. Click on this link for a brief tutorial on how to use Boolean search logic. Our search function also understands “fuzzy searches.” Fuzzy searches utilize the (*) and will find matches even when users misspell words or enter in only partial words for the search. For example, searching for liber* will produce results for liberation/liberate/liberates/etc.
Keyword Searches
You’ll notice that under the heading KEYWORDS, there are a number of words, phrases or names that describe content. Sometimes these are also called “tags.” Clicking on these words is essentially the same as conducting a basic search.
Welcome to the Freedom Archives' Digital Search Engine.The Freedom Archives contains over 12,000 hours of audio and video recordings which date from the late-1960s to the mid-90s and chronicle the progressive history of the Bay Area, the United States, and international movements. We are also in the process of scanning and uploading thousands of historical documents which enrich our media holdings. Our collection includes weekly news, poetry, music programs; in-depth interviews and reports on social and cultural issues; numerous voices from behind prison walls; diverse activists; and pamphlets, journals and other materials from many radical organizations and movements.

The Paul Robeson Show

The Paul Robeson Show, 1982–1985. This series highlights the songs, speeches, struggles, life and contributions of this extraordinarily gifted and dedicated human rights activist and towering cultural figure.

Thanks to Emiliano Echeverria’s large collection, including rare recordings unavailable elsewhere, this series of one-hour programs explored many aspects of Robeson’s work, with emphasis on his lifelong commitment to worldwide social movements, as well as his courageous battles for civil and human rights for people of African descent in the US and his resistance to the intense repression against him by the US government, its vicious racism and anti-Communism. One of the unique strengths of the collection, reflected in both the series and the Freedom Archives CD entitled Words Like Freedom is the many speeches and spoken words of Robeson. Of course the many songs and dramatic performances of Robeson also abound in the collection and on the “Paul Robeson Show” series. The program was primarily produced by Emiliano Echeverria, with frequent contributions by Lincoln Bergman. In addition to recordings by Robeson, the collection also includes a number of memorial programs following his death, and commentary by other activists and artists on his tremendous—and still not sufficiently recognized—achievements and influence.

Documents

Paul Robeson Speaks at Marine Cooks & Stewards Union Paul Robeson Speaks at Marine Cooks & Stewards Union
Collection: The Paul Robeson Show
Sample of Paul Robeson, the great African-American Singer and activist, in a rare recording, takes from a speech to a union gathering in San Francisco.