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.

Freedom Archives Productions

These materials were used in various Freedom Archives productions released between 2000 and 2013.

Subcollections

Documents

Salt of the Earth Salt of the Earth
Date: 1/1/1954Call Number: CD 389Format: DVDProducers: Herbert BibermanCollection: Compact discs and videos representing digitized copies of analog tapes
Salt of the Earth is based on a 1950 strike by zinc miners in Silver City, New Mexico. Against a backdrop of social injustice, a riveting family drama is played out by the characters of Ramon and Esperanza Quintero, a Mexican-American miner and his wife. In the course of the strike, Ramon and Esperanza find their roles reversed: an injunction against the male strikers moves the women to take over the picket line, leaving the men to domestic duties. The women evolve from men's subordinates into their allies and equals. Made during the height of the McCarthy era by a group of blacklisted filmmakers who were among the best and the brightest Hollywood talent of the day, Salt of the Earth is itself a powerful and emotionally charged feature which tells the true story of this troubled production, while also allowing the user to meet the filmmakers, understand the historical background and view the film, all on the same platform. Selected by The Library of Congress as one of only 100 American films to be preserved for posterity, this film portrays a moving and controversial portrait of human courage that is mirrored in real life by the struggles of its creators.