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

Tierra, lluvia y fuego Tierra, lluvia y fuego
Date: 1/1/2007Call Number: CD 630Format: DVDProducers: Tami Gold, Gerardo ReniqueCollection: Compact discs and videos representing digitized copies of analog tapes
Land, Rain and Fire: Report from Oaxaca What began as a teachers’ strike for better wages and more resources for students has erupted into a massive movement for profound social change in the state of Oaxaca. Police attacked more than fifty thousand teachers camped out with their children. They were awakened to tear gas, pepper spray and helicopters. But the attack backfired as public anger transformed the strike into an unprecedented democratic insurgency, demanding the resignation of Governor Ruiz. Hundreds of unions, indigenous and women’s organizations, neighborhood groups, students and professional associations came together and created The Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) and a massive campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience has brought the state government to a standstill.