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

Kwame Ture on the history of black student revolutionary organizations Kwame Ture on the history of black student revolutionary organizations
Date: 3/22/1994Call Number: AFR 051Format: Cass A & BProgram: Student Organizing from 1960 to 1994Collection: Kwame Ture
Kwame Ture speaks about the history of black student revolutionary protest organizations such as SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) and the BPP (Black Panther Party). He talks about the oppression of the capitalist system in disorganizing black organizations. He explains how Africans are used to having a hard life and constantly struggling for freedom. Struggle makes you stronger, and brings progress. Ture calls people to push black consciousness and to talk about both the oppressed and the oppressor, so as to avoid blaming the oppressed in the end. He also talks about how it is the capitalist system’s job to instill ideas of inferiority in African Americans, but he calls people to fight inferiority, and to increase their consciousness of African contributions to America. Ture talks about how Africa was the first continent to unite different countries under the OAU (Organization of African Unity). Lastly, he speaks about African’s high level of unity in action, but not in thought, because of the prevalence of ignorance of the value of organizing.
Black Panther (Off the Pig) and San Francisco State: On Strike Black Panther (Off the Pig) and San Francisco State: On Strike
Date: 1/1/1969Call Number: V 313Format: DVDProducers: CA NewsreelCollection: Videos in many formats – both camera originals as well as reference materials
Black Panther This is the film the Black Panthers used to promote their cause. Shot in 1969, in Oakland, San Francisco and Sacramento, this exemplar of 1960s activist filmmaking traces the development of the Black Panther organization. In an interview from jail, Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton describes the origins of the Panther Party, Eldridge Cleaver explains the Panthers' appeal to the Black community, and Chairman Bobby Seale enumerates the Panther 10-Point Program as Panthers march and demonstrate. San Francisco State: On Strike Ethnic studies courses are common today, but that hasn't always been the case. In many ways, multicultural education can be traced back to San Francisco in 1968-1969. In one of the most high-profile student actions of the 1960s, students at San Francisco State University went on strike, shutting down the campus for six months. University president S.I. Hayakawa called in the police, who busted heads and arrested hundreds in an attempt to restore control of the campus. But the strike didn't end until the school acceded to student demands and created the first ethnic studies department at an American university. This film, shot by the students and their allies, is a classic primary source document of the 1960s.
Historic Black Panther Party Film Historic Black Panther Party Film
Call Number: V 314Format: DVDCollection: Videos in many formats – both camera originals as well as reference materials
Features interviews with Minister of Defense, Huey P. Newton (from Alameda County Jail), Eldridge Cleaver, Minister of Information, and Chairman Bobby Seale. The film also features scenes from a Black Panther rally at Hutton Memorial Park demanding the release of Mr. Newton.
International Efforts to end Vietnam War/Puerto Rican Nationalist Party International Efforts to end Vietnam War/Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
Call Number: C 10 017Format: DV CamCollection: COINTELPRO 101 Raw Materials
Press conference with group of activists returning from North Vietnam (cut off); clips of Kathleen Cleaver; interview with Black Panther credited saying, “the only good pig is a dead pig”; news report on Puerto Rican Nationalist Party open fire on House of Representatives.