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 We are also in the process of scanning and uploading thousands of historical documents which enrich our media holdings.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.

Black Liberation Movement People

This collection is comprised of sub-collections on influential people in the Black Liberation Movement. These sub-collections with audio (often rare) and paper materials focus on major figures such as Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, Huey Newton, Robert F. Williams, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., George Jackson, Geronimo Ji Jaga, Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, and others.

Subcollections

  • Angela Davis
    Angela Davis is an African-American political activist and scholar. She emerged as a prominent activist in the 1960s, as a leader of the Communist Party USA, and although never a member, had close relations with the Black Panther Party.
  • Assata Shakur
    Assata Shakur is an activist and icon of the Black Liberation Movement living in exile in Cuba. Assata was captured following a shootout in New Jersey in 1973. After being illegally held and tried for six years, she escaped in 1979.
  • Bayard Rustin
    Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) was an African-American activist involved in social movements for civil rights, socialism, non-violence and gay rights. Rustin was the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
  • Chokwe Lumumba
    Chokwe Lumumba is a activist, attorney, and a co-founder and member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. He has represented a number of political prisoners and activists and well as been active in organizing for the Republic of New Afrika (RNA).
  • Eldridge Cleaver
    Eldridge Cleaver was a writer and political activist who became a prominent leader of the Black Panther Party, holding the titles of Minister of Information and Head of the International Section of the Panthers while in exile in Cuba and Algeria.
  • Dhoruba Bin Wahad
    Dhoruba Bin Wahad was a political prisoner active in the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. He served 19 years in prison as a result of a murder conviction facilitated by illegal COINTELPRO activities. Bin Wahad was released in 1995.
  • Donald Cox
    Donald Cox was a member of the Black Panther Party who fled to Algeria to escape a politically motivated murder conviction. He continued to remain active in the struggle for Black Liberation until his death in 2011.
  • Fred Hampton
    Fred Hampton was the Chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and was one of the great young minds in the Black Liberation Movement. Fred Hampton was murdered by Chicago Police while asleep in his bed in 1969.
  • Vicki Garvin
    Vicki Ama Garvin (1915-2007) was a Pan-Africanist and internationalist, who lived and worked in both Ghana and China during the revolutionary period of the 1960s.
  • Geronimo Ji-Jaga (Pratt)
    Geronimo Ji-Jaga, affectionately known as "G", was a major figure in the Black Liberation Struggle. Geronimo was a member of the Black Panther Party and spent 27 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. Geronimo passed away in 2011.
  • Huey Newton
    In 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in Oakland, California. Newton played a major role in the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Movement until his death in 1989.
  • Kwame Ture
    Kwame Ture (FKA Stokely Carmichael) helped coin the phrase "Black Power" and was the first leader of SNCC. Carmichael changed his name to Kwame Ture, to honor the African leaders Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Touré. Ture lived in Guinea until his death in 1998.
  • Malcolm X
    Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. Malcolm X drew from elements of Pan-Africanism and Black Nationalism to challenge white supremacy and American imperialism.
  • Martin Luther King Jr.
    Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) was a clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience.
  • Paul Robeson
    Paul Robeson was an African-American singer, actor, lawyer, social activist and athlete. Robeson was active in Pan-African and Communist organizing and subsequently was a target of government repression during McCarthyism.
  • Popeye Jackson
    While incarcerated at San Quentin, Popeye Jackson held a leadership position in the United Prisoners Union. He was murdered in 1975 in San Francisco.
  • Mabel and Robert F. Williams
    Mabel and Robert F. Williams were leading members of the struggle for Black Liberation, internationalism and staunch supporters of armed self-defense. After being forced to flee North Carolina, they lived in Cuba and China before returning to America.
  • Safiya Bukhari
    A member of the Black Panther Party and the BLA, Safiya Bukhari was imprisoned for nine years. Released in 1983, she went on to co-found the New York Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition and other organizations advocating for the release of political prisoners.
  • Dessie Woods
    Dessie Woods’ became internationally known after she was sentenced to 22 years in prison for killing a white man in Georgia with his own gun when he tried to rape her. A large-scale national and international solidarity movement developed around her case.
  • Bill Epton
    William Leo Epton Jr. was a Maoist African-American communist activist.

Documents

Mabel Williams' Advice to Young People Mabel Williams' Advice to Young People
Year: 2004Call Number: Format: mp3Producers: Freedom ArchivesCollection: Mabel and Robert F. Williams
Interviewed by Walter Turner, Mabel Williams gives advice to young people.