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.

Materials Recorded and Gathered for "Wild Poppies"

A poetry jam in space — created across and despite razor wire, prison bars and censored phone lines. It is a gathering of poets to celebrate the work of sister poet Marilyn Buck, who has spent more than 20 years in US prisons for her anti-imperialist politics and actions.In the eyes of the government, Marilyn is an enemy of the state, despised for her role in freeing Black Liberation leader Assata Shakur, hated for her willingness to risk her life and freedom for a world imaginable only to a revolutionary—or a poet.
Yet for the poets who rushed to lend their voices and their words to this collection, Marilyn is someone very different – a woman who lives for transformation. Through her political activism and writing, she creates the possibility of a world of social justice and peace. Through her approach to prison, she transforms the repression and censorship of imprisonment and, in the process, has become a poet.The poet contributors read Marilyn's poems and their own. They include Amiri Baraka, carolyn baxter/Nottiehead Bosco, Dennis Brutus, Aya De Leon, Fanny Howe, Uchechi Kalu, Elana Levy, Genny Lim, devorah major, Sara Menefee, Kiilu Nyasha, Maria Poblet, Presente!, Carlos Quiles, Samsara, Sonia Sanchez, Staajabu, Jean Stewart, Piri Thomas, Kwame Ture/Stokely Carmichael, Nellie Wong, Merle Woo, and Mitsuye Yamada. See the poet profiles and the poems.
Framing the poetry is music contributed by India Cooke, Eugenio Maldonado “El Viejo Mago," Fred Ho & the Brooklyn Saxophone Quartet,Copper Wimmin, Idris Ackamoor, and the musicians and activists of Shame the Devil.

Documents

Devorah Major Reads Political Poem Devorah Major Reads Political Poem
Format: mp3Program: Freedom ArchivesCollection: Materials Recorded and Gathered for "Wild Poppies"
Poem on themes of anti-colonialism and struggle read by the author.
Devorah Major Reads Prison Chant Devorah Major Reads Prison Chant
Format: mp3Producers: Freedom ArchivesCollection: Materials Recorded and Gathered for "Wild Poppies"
Devorah Major reads Marilyn Buck's piece on the devastation of incarceration on the family. Devorah Major, San Francisco's third poet laureate, is also a novelist, essayist, teacher and arts activist.