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, specifcally AND/+, NOT/-, and OR operators. 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.
Welcome to the Freedom Archives' Digital Search Engine.The Freedom Archives contains over 12,000 hours of audio and video recordings which date from the late-1960s to the mid-90s and chronicle the progressive history of the Bay Area, the United States, and international movements. We are also in the process of scanning and uploading thousands of historical documents which enrich our media holdings. Our collection includes weekly news, poetry, music programs; in-depth interviews and reports on social and cultural issues; numerous voices from behind prison walls; diverse activists; and pamphlets, journals and other materials from many radical organizations and movements.

Pelican Bay

This collection contains materials related to Pelican Bay State Prison located in Crescent City, California. This collection includes audio as well as copies of the Pelican Bay Prison Express, a periodical created by an independent citizens solidarity group.

Documents

Pelican Bay Prison Pelican Bay Prison
Date: 11/25/1994Call Number: PM 349AFormat: Cass ACollection: Pelican Bay
About the inhuman conditions of Pelican Bay control unit prison. Prisoners describe how the prison prevents them from receiving pictures from home. The prison also prohibits having books, because they can be used as weapons. Also mentioned was the lack of health services and the difficulty of obtaining medications.
Bato Talamantez on Pelican Bay Prison [mp3] Bato Talamantez on Pelican Bay Prison [mp3]
Date: 11/25/1994Call Number: Format: mp3Collection: Pelican Bay
About the inhuman conditions of Pelican Bay control unit prison and the development of political consciousness. Interviewer then reads a poem about prison and its hellish conditions.