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

Police Brutality and Corruption Police Brutality and Corruption
Date: 1/1/2008Call Number: PM 318Format: Cass A & BProducers: Prison Activist Resource CenterProgram: On The OutsideCollection: Political Prisoner Periodicals
Michael Novick of People Against Racial Terror speaks about police brutality and corruption, Arun Rasiah of the American Friends Service Committee speaks about prisoner support. Information is provided about conditions in local prisons.
Washington, DC - Press Conference by CDHR Washington, DC - Press Conference by CDHR
Date: 12/1/2008Call Number: LT 024Format: Mini DVProducers: Freedom ArchivesCollection: Materials shot and gathered for the making of “Legacy of Torture”
Held by the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, featuring Ron Daniels, Ray Boudreaux, John Bowman, Danny Glover and Hank Jones.
Xavier Viramontes: A Life in Print Xavier Viramontes: A Life in Print
Date: 1/1/2008Call Number: V 661Format: DVDProducers: Michel FraserCollection: Videos in many formats – both camera originals as well as reference materials
A profile of Xavier Viramontes, one of the most influential Hispanic artists of our time. His iconoclast silk screen poster, BOYCOTT GRAPES, for the United Farmworkers, awakened a nation and rallied the Chicano movement in art.
Prison Focus Prison Focus
Publisher: California Prison FocusYear: 2008Volume Number: No. 31 SummerFormat: PeriodicalCollection: Prison Focus
Cover Story- Black August We Will Never Forget
A3 Annual Update A3 Annual Update
Publisher: International Coalition to Free the Angola 3Date: 12/2008Volume Number: DecemberFormat: FlyerCollection: Angola 3
Flyer with updates, contact information and background information around the Angola 3