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

Emily Harris Emily Harris
Date: 12/8/1977Call Number: PM 261AFormat: Cass ACollection: Prisons - Women
Political prisoner Emily Harris reads her statement involving her oppression in the California Institution for Women. In attempt to bring change, the only tool she has left is her own body. In result of the injustices, she went on a hunger strike. In recent history, the jail has conducted appalling medical practices on their female inmates. In result of a hunger strike horrendous medical practices were conducted on Emily Harris with no hesitation. On November 29, the doctors forcefully shoved a feeding tube down her throat. Recent studies have shown that that this could make a person choke to death or puncture the esophagus. The proper way is to feed intravenously. After this dreadful experience she was sent to court in a very sick condition. Eventually, the authorities noticed the actions and fed her intravenously. After this experience, she continued to struggle for basic human rights.