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

Finally Got the News This Far by Faith Finally Got the News This Far by Faith
Call Number: V 096Format: VHSCollection: Videos in many formats – both camera originals as well as reference materials
Two documentaries. The first, "Finally Got the News," is about the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the formation of The Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM). The founders of the movement discuss the economic injustices and racism that lie at the heart of the American economic system. Filmed in Detroit with footage from the late '60s and early '70s, there are interviews with Marxist/Leninist socialists and radical organizers. It is the story of the black poor working on the production lines, underpaid and overworked, organize and fight for better wages and reasonable hours. Claims it is propaganda that keeps white and black poor workers enemies. The film is grainy and shot in black and white but is well organized and contains great dialogue and images of industrial America and factory life. The second, "This Far by Faith," is about the 1990 Delta Pride Catfish processing plant strike in Indianola, Mississippi- a struggle that ended in settlement and resulted in higher wages and more benefits for its workers. The majority of workers and strikers are single black women. They discuss the oppressive and dangerous working conditions, long hours, frequency of carpel tunnel, racial slurs and insubstantial wages endured at the factory. Footage of strikers at the picket line and interviews with civil rights leaders who discuss the meaning of this strike in the context of Mississippi's economically depressed and brutal slave-owning past.