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

Human Rights, Puerto Rico Day in Chicago Human Rights, Puerto Rico Day in Chicago
Date: 6/11/1977Call Number: FI 070Format: 1/4 7 1/2 ipsProducers: Barbara Lubinski, Heber DreherProgram: Freedom Is a Constant StruggleCollection: Freedom is a Constant Struggle
Speech on human rights violations in Philippines, Iran, Argentina - "torture widespread and systematic," with US support. Threat to abortion rights in Congress. Police shootings at Puerto Rico Day celebration in Chicago, Humboldt Park. Oakland protests against shooting of Chicano. Prison summary, including Joe Remiro. Eviction notices at International Hotel.
Africa in Revolutionary Music: various artists Africa in Revolutionary Music: various artists
Date: 1/1/1975Call Number: Vin 087Format: VinylProducers: LSM RecordsCollection: Compact discs and videos representing digitized copies of analog tapes
This album is a collection of African revolutionary and traditional songs. The purpose of these songs are to educate, commemorating significant events, spreading new ideas and ideals of revolution. Countries represented in this album include Angola, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and even Afro-Brazilian street music.