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.

Feminist and Lesbian Politics: Monographs-Periodicals-Articles

While diverse in medium and subject matter, this collection contextualizes women’s liberation highlighting issues of class, race, sexuality and imperialism. The materials in this collection focus on lived experience and practical knowledge instead of theory. Accordingly, this collection predominantly features perspectives of women often excluded from or overshadowed in popular feminist discourse, including nonwhite, lesbian/queer, working-class, and the Third World. Topics of focus include violence against women and self-defense, representation of women in the media, radical feminist perspectives, historical feminist perspectives and reproductive rights.  Formats include periodicals, monographs, articles and reports. Although the materials examine a wide range of topics and contain a diverse set of perspectives, many of the materials were produced in the Bay Area and the vast majority of the materials come from the United States. Although many of the contents were published 30+ years ago, they still maintain contemporary relevance.

Documents

The Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves The Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves
Author: Angela DavisPublisher: The Black ScholarDate: 12/1971Volume Number: DecemberFormat: ArticleCollection: Feminist and Lesbian Politics: Monographs-Periodicals-Articles
Reflections on the overlooked & unique struggle and resistance of enslaved black American women