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. 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.

Black Panther Party general

The Black Panther Party was an African-American revolutionary socialist organization active in the United States from 1966 until 1982. At its height, The Black Panther Party had chapters in most major urban American cities as well as numerous international chapters. The Black Panther Party achieved large amounts of grassroots community as a result of their free breakfast programs for youth and constant advocacy around issues of self defense and police brutality.

Documents

Testimony of Fred J. Hiestand, Public Advocates, Inc. Before the Senate Health & Welfare Committee on Behalf of the NAACP, Western Region; The Black Panther Party; The National Organization for Women; The Mexican-American Political Association; and the California Prisoners' Union Testimony of Fred J. Hiestand, Public Advocates, Inc. Before the Senate Health & Welfare Committee on Behalf of the NAACP, Western Region; The Black Panther Party; The National Organization for Women; The Mexican-American Political Association; and the California Prisoners' Union
Author: Fred HiestandPublisher: Public Advocates, Inc.Date: 5/9/1973Volume Number: May 9Format: TranscriptCollection: Black Panther Party general
Testimony re: proposed Center for the Study and Reduction of Violence, especially re: behavior modification experiments and surgeries on California prisoners