Freedom Archives Search Engine

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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.

African liberation movements

African liberation movements arose from a growing nationalism among previously divided African communities, the unfulfilled promise of self-determination following the end of World War II and the weakened economic and political capacities of Western Europe.

Our collection contains a wide range of materials representing liberation movements from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, and the Congo (DRC). Our collection also features containing Human Rights Reports from South Africa, IKWEZI, a revolutionary Azanian journal, and a sub-collection containing general resources about the continent. This collection includes audio and paper materials.

Strengths of the collection include materials on the role of women in African liberation struggles and national reconstruction, an interesting assortment of periodicals from Southern Africa, speeches and interviews with revolutionary leaders from across the continent, audio from solidarity events in the United States, and a set of human rights reports compiled during the transition from Apartheid to democracy in South Africa.

Subcollections

Africa- General Resources
This collection contains general resources about various themes related to the African continent. The collection draws from many types of materials (periodicals, books, pamphlets) and many different countries (Kenya, Guinea, Tanzania).
Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique
This collection contains materials from the liberation struggles in former Portuguese colonies. Guinea Bissau gained independence in 1973 and Mozambique and Angola achieved independence in 1975.
Anti-Apartheid Solidarity
This collection contains materials from Bay Area anti-apartheid movements of the 1980s originating from various sources, primarily Bay Area-based South African solidarity groups.
Eritrea
Eritrea is located in the Horn of Africa. It gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1991 after a 30 year struggle for independence.
IKWEZI
IKWEZI is a revolutionary Azanian Journal based on Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.
South Africa
This collection contains a variety of materials which focus on the anti-apartheid movement both within and outside of South Africa.
South Africa: Human Rights Reports
The Human Rights Commission published weekly, monthly and annual reports. In addition, occasional in-depth special reports were published on important human rights issues.
SWAPO- Namibia
SWAPO (Southwest Africa Peoples Organization) was formed in 1960 to fight for liberation in present day Namibia. Namibia gained independence from South Africa in 1990.
Zaire-DRC
This collection contains materials from the Congolese struggle against neocolonialism and the rule of General Mobuto Sese Seko.
Zimbabwe
This collection contains information about the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe, mainly focused on the struggle against Rhodesia and white settler rule.