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.

Independent Collections

These collections were produced by independent journalists. Many of these recordings make up the bulk of the original collection of the Freedom Archives.

Subcollections

Documents

Mario Savio- A Study in Charisma and FSM Court Comedies Mario Savio- A Study in Charisma and FSM Court Comedies
Call Number: CE 703Format: 1/4 7 1/2 ipsProducers: Colin EdwardsCollection: Colin Edwards Free Speech Movement
The first part of the tape is entitled Mario Savio a Study in Charisma and is the story of Mario Savio who rose from a normal student to the leader of the Free Speech Movement. This short documentary includes of number of excerpts from Mario’s speeches. He gives a chronology of the FSM, links it to larger struggles for civil rights, and argues that students are fully competent to challenge educational tyranny. Included is a speech in which Mario says goodbye to his leadership position in the FSM and the palpable dismay of the crowd. At the end of the program are selections of FSM supporters singing Happy Birthday to Mario as well as FSM parodies of the traditional songs “Comfort and Joy” and “Hallelujah: Glory of the Coming of the Cops.” The second part of the tape is entitled Court Comedies: A collection of humorous memories and scenes from recent trials of students at the University of California Berkeley. Following their arrests at the Sproul Hall sit-in, many students faced heavy fines and/or jail time as well as academic sanctions from the University. This segment details the cases of four specific students, recaps some of the humorous testimony and verbal exchanges during their university trials and discusses the students’ sentences. The tape concludes with Professor Thomas Parkinson reading a letter supporting the students to the committee trying the cases.