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

“Lockdown in California Prisons” “Lockdown in California Prisons”
Date: 12/29/1993Call Number: PM 232Format: CassetteProducers: KPFACollection: Political Prisoner Periodicals
KPFA broadcast of the overcrowding of prisons and the violent tactics employed by prison guards. Old interviews from George Jackson and James "Doc" Holiday discuss the brutal conditions of inmate abuse and the inattention it receives from the media. They discuss the San Quentin strike and outline their demands of: adequate health care, the necessity for a congressional investigation into the prison administration, federal control, and negotiations with the media to provoke dialogue among the general public. The subsequent lockdown is discussed and by San Quentin Six inmate Hugo Pinell. Pinell, along with other inmates, recount the torture of being tear-gassed and beaten by brutal guards. Reporters describe action taken by Bay Area legal organizations challenging the lockdown and inhumane "quiet rooms" also known as "the hole". This report then describes the breaching of inmate rights such as attorney/client confidentiality, and rights to be interviewed. Background prison noise sometimes muffles the sound and makes it difficult to understand; other interviews relatively clear.