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

Buried Voices Buried Voices
Date: 7/1/2012Call Number: CD 863Format: DVDProducers: Michelle SteinbergCollection: Compact discs and videos representing digitized copies of analog tapes
Buried Voices details the struggle of the Ohlone and Miwok peoples, indigenous to the California Bay Area, to protect from desecration one of their most sacred places, now known as Brushy Peak in Livermore, CA. The film recounts how the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) blatantly ignores the concerns of local Native communities, instead plowing ahead with the development of a public recreation area atop the site of multiple tribes' origin stories. The construction uproots and damages artifacts and ancestral remains, transforming a place of most profound significance to the region’s longest continuous inhabitants into a multi-use hiking/biking trail. Weaving together interviews with Native individuals and a top official within the park district, this documentary presents the story of Brushy Peak as a lens to explore the importance of indigenous voices guiding land stewardship. The film’s release coincides with a growing campaign to hold EBRPD accountable for their lack of consultation with local Native communities, an issue that many park districts and public agencies continue to grapple with. Buried Voices prompts engagement with an oft-overlooked aspect of the legacy of five hundred plus years of colonization.