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

Why Assata Shakur was Convicted Why Assata Shakur was Convicted
Publisher: BLA Coordinating CommitteeDate: 4/1977Volume Number: AprilFormat: StatementCollection: Assata Shakur
Statement from BLA Coordinating Committee on why Assata was unjustly convicted.
The Split of the Weather Underground Organization: Struggle Against White and Male Supremacy The Split of the Weather Underground Organization: Struggle Against White and Male Supremacy
Publisher: John Brown Book ClubDate: 2/1977Volume Number: FebruaryFormat: MonographCollection: Prarie Fire Organizing Committee (PFOC)
Prairie Fire Organizing Committee published documents of the split in the Weather Underground Organization. CONTENTS: Intro by John Brown Book Club; Class and Revolutionary Politics: the meaning of the Hard Times Conference (Feb.1976); In Defense of Prairie Fire by Clayton van Lydegraf (July 1976); WUO Public Self-Criticism by the RC (Oct.1976); Criticism of the Central Committee by the Revolutionary Committee (Nov. 1976);Tape from Bernadine Dohrn (Nov. 1976); Letter from sisters in the WUO to the women of PFOC (Sept. 1976); John Brown Book Club's Self-Criticism; Open Letter to the RC from Native American Warriors (Jan. 1977); Statement on the Bombing of the INS by the RC (Feb. 1977)
On the Necessity of Armed Struggle and Refutation of the Theory of "Survival" On the Necessity of Armed Struggle and Refutation of the Theory of "Survival"
Authors: Amir Parviz Pouyan, Organization of Iranian People's Fedayee GuerrillasPublisher: Support Committee for the Iranian People's StruggleYear: 1977Format: MonographCollection: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Prepares the fundamental basis for the formation of a struggling Fedayee vanguard.