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

Joann Tall Joann Tall
Call Number: KP 399Format: Cass A & BProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
About Tall's personal experiences with the sterilization of Native American women starting in the 1960's. Also about the detrimental health impacts of sterilization as well as contaminated water, radiation exposures, and pesticides. Also about the boarding schools and political obstacles to resisting the destruction of her tribes health and land. Brief mention about the positive impacts of the Occupation of Wounded Knee.
Yvonne Swan and Lisa Michel Yvonne Swan and Lisa Michel
Call Number: KP 400AFormat: Cass AProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
Yvonne speaks about Native American spirituality in contrast with religion, which she associates with the history of Christianity. Also about personal spiritual experiences, followed by a prayer of strength and peace, and a song. Lisa speaks about her personal experiences with childbirth and the lack of medical attention during pregnancy and birth. As a Native American woman, she remarks on all the diseases children are born with and how sterilization isn't effective because doctors do not explain the procedure.
Tina Fry Tina Fry
Call Number: KP 400BFormat: Cass BProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
Speaks about her personal experiences with traumatic health problems during childbirth, forced sterilization and experimental drugs in her Native American community. Also about a lack of doctors, poor access to care, and medical malpractice.
Alison Govings Alison Govings
Call Number: KP 402AFormat: Cass AProducers: Carole TravisCollection: General materials
About personal health problems and her decision to be sterilized. Also about doctors denying care, and a lack of pediatricians and specialized health care providers.
Alison Stewart Alison Stewart
Call Number: KP 403Format: Cass A & BProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
About health problems facing pregnant women and coerced sterilization. Also about Native Americans being exploited by logging companies and mines and the challenges to acting against these corporations. She also discusses her personal health, activism, and the environmental issues facing the Native American community.
Joann Tall Joann Tall
Call Number: CD 674Format: CDProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Compact discs and videos representing digitized copies of analog tapes
About Tall's personal experiences with the sterilization of Native American women starting in the 1960's. Also about the detrimental health impacts of sterilization as well as contaminated water, radiation exposures, and pesticides. Also about the boarding schools and political obstacles to resisting the destruction of her tribes health and land. Brief mention about the positive impacts of the Occupation of Wounded Knee.
Yvonne Swan and Lisa Michel Yvonne Swan and Lisa Michel
Call Number: CD 729Format: CDProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Compact discs and videos representing digitized copies of analog tapes
Yvonne Swan speaks about Native American spirituality in contrast with religion, which she associates with the history of Christianity. Also about personal spiritual experiences, followed by a prayer of strength and peace, and a song. Lisa Michel speaks about her personal experiences with childbirth and the lack of medical attention during pregnancy and birth. As a Native American woman, she remarks on all the diseases children are born with and how sterilization isn't effective because doctors do not explain the procedure. Tina Fry speaks about her personal experiences with traumatic health problems during childbirth, forced sterilization and experimental drugs in her Native American community. Also about a lack of doctors, poor access to care, and medical malpractice.
Joann Tall Joann Tall
Call Number: CD 914Format: CDProducers: Carole TravisCollection: Native Americans
About Tall's personal experiences with the sterilization of Native American women starting in the 1960's. Also about the detrimental health impacts of sterilization as well as contaminated water, radiation exposures, and pesticides. Also about the boarding schools and political obstacles to resisting the destruction of her tribes health and land. Brief mention about the positive impacts of the Occupation of Wounded Knee.
35% Puerto Rican Women Sterilized 35% Puerto Rican Women Sterilized
Publisher: Committee for Puerto Rican DecolonizationYear: 1974Volume Number: Vol. 2-5Format: ArticleCollection: Puerto Rico: A History of the People
An article from the Committee for Puerto Rican Decolonization in New York exposing the massive sterilization program carried out by the U.S. Government and the Rockefeller Foundation in response to the "population problem" in Puerto Rico that was seen as responsible for widespread unemployment.
Gov't Network Sterilizes Workers Gov't Network Sterilizes Workers
Publisher: Committee for Puerto Rican DecolonizationFormat: ArticleCollection: Puerto Rico: A History of the People
A continuation of an article about the history of mass sterilization in Puerto Rico but focuses on the problems with the current health system and includes the results of a 1968 study on sterilzation.