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.

George Jackson

George Jackson was arrested in 1957 for stealing $70 from a gas station and was sentenced to 1 year to life. Jackson ended up being incarcerated for 14 years until he was murdered by prison guards inside San Quentin Prison in 1971. During his 14 years of imprisonment, Jackson became of the seminal figures and thinkers of Black Power and the Black Liberation Movement.

Documents

The Deaths at San Quentin August 21, 1971 The Deaths at San Quentin August 21, 1971
Call Number: PM 186Format: 1/4 7 1/2 ipsProducers: Patrick Meyers, David StephensCollection: George Jackson
A report on the events of August 26, 1971, five days after the deaths at San Quentin, when attorneys were allowed inside the prison for the first time since the uprising. Account of the events at the pre-trial hearings for the two surviving Soledad Brothers (John Cluchette and Fleeta Drumgo) in which attorneys attempted to have the prisoners removed from San Quentin and held in SF County Jail for the duration of the trial due to severe beatings by the prison guards. Police and court security guards began beating audience members as a mini-riot broke out. Contains footage from the courtroom. Response by Assemblyman Willie Brown to the State Dept. of Corrections report on the events of August 21st and the censorship of “revolutionary materials” being sent to the prisoners through US mail.