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

Militarism in El Salvador After the Peace Accords Militarism in El Salvador After the Peace Accords
Date: 1/1/1992Call Number: JG/ 127BFormat: Cass BProducers: Judy GerberCollection: Programs produced by Judy Gerber and Laurie Simms
Focuses on the corruption and heavy involvement of military forces in drug trafficking and money laundering in El Salvador, as well as the outright subordination of public security over military police. President Cristiani’s decision to reduce the budget for public security, which was put into place after the end of the civil war, is a direct violation of the Peace Accords, which created the National Civil Police as an apolitical force to protect human rights.
Coit Tower Action Coit Tower Action
Date: 5/15/1989Call Number: V 496Format: Hi-8Producers: Lisa RudmanCollection: Videos in many formats – both camera originals as well as reference materials
Bay Area Pledge of Resistance occupies Coit Tower and unfurls banner in order to draw attention to the election of the ARENA party in El Salvador, the party which organized the death squads that killed thousands of El Salvadorians. Members of Pledge are carrying out this action to do the work the mass media doesn't in their coverage of El Salvador.