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.

Search Results

Statement from Wounded Knee Statement from Wounded Knee
Format: mp3Collection: Indigenous Struggles
Statement of purpose by Dennis Banks at the occupation of Wounded Knee. Articulates the position that the US government will not respond to unarmed struggle.
Indigenous Resistance 1 Indigenous Resistance 1
Collection: Indigenous Struggles
Buffy Saint Marie - My Country Tis of Thy People You’re Dying – about boarding schools and falsified history. Joanne Tall – about the ongoing genocidal impact of boarding schools, how religion forces assimilation, the 1973 Liberation of Wounded Knee and how it impacted her and her people.
Indigenous Resistance - Part 2 from Roots of Resistance Indigenous Resistance - Part 2 from Roots of Resistance
Publisher: Freedom ArchivesProgram: Roots of ResistanceCollection: Indigenous Struggles
Chant in resistance to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (the BIA), by Native-American activists “Radio Free Alcatraz” broadcast by the Indians of All Tribes on Alcatraz in 1969 – John Trudell, Richard Oakes and Don Cooney. Wounded Knee mix with sounds of the American Indian Movement (AIM) – occupation, shots, FBI radio messages, and the voices of Dennis Banks and Carter Camp. Wounded Knee was also the site of an 1890 genocidal massacre of the Sioux Nation by the US cavalry.