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

The Woman’s Prison at Santa Rita The Woman’s Prison at Santa Rita
Date: 8/18/1967Call Number: PM 140Format: 1/4 7 1/2 ipsProducers: Elsa Knight ThompsonCollection: Prisons - Women
Bettina Aptheker Kurzweil, who had just finished serving a 45-day sentence in Santa Rita County jail on charges arising out of her FSM activities, talks with Elsa Knight Thompson. This is an in-depth description of the jail’s physical appearance, daily work schedule, food, the ranking system of the police guards and deputies, the medical facilities and their inadequacies, the economic/ethnic composition of the prisoners, the charges made against the women prisoners and how they are often made worse by the court system, the discrepancies between the women and the men’s prisons, how economic factors effect who goes to this jail, the visiting room and its no child under 14 policy, the library, and the rules. Bettina was pregnant during her time in jail which adds an interesting element to her interview. She also talked about “The Cell” which is the jail’s way of arbitrarily punishing prisoners with solitary confinement. “The Cell” means a minimum of ten days in solitary confinement with no maximum amount declared until the deputy decides it is time for the prisoner to be released. This is a wonderful, genuine, interview that should not be missed.
Stew Albert Commentary Stew Albert Commentary
Date: 2/13/1969Call Number: KP 340Format: 1/4 3 3/4 ipsProducers: KPFAProgram: CommentaryCollection: General materials
Commentary by well-known activist Stew Albert talking about women's liberation, starting from a list of notable women in US that did not include hardly any who accomplished things on their own.