An
award-winning documentary portrait of the last political kingdom
in America Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, a racial and ethnic
gumbo in the swamps ruled for over 60 years by the all-powerful
Perez family. From the time Judge Leander Perez came to power in
1919, he made headlines across Louisiana and throughout the country.
The Judge and his two sons clamped down on all political opposition,
restricted free elections, disenfranchised black citizens, and made
millions of dollars from oil. In the 50s and 60s Judge Perez became
a national spokesman for racial segregation, bankrolling George
Wallace and going so far as to outfit an old Civil War fort as a
high security prison for any civil rights demonstrators who dared
to venture into his county.
When
the Judge died in 1969, Perez power was secure. But by 1980 his
two sons began to feud with each other over their empire, and long-simmering
democratic forces came to a boil. This was the exciting atmosphere
that filmmakers Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker capture in The
Ends of The Earth, as the first free elections in Plaquemines
were held and the long-oppressed Blacks of the parish organized
to get the basic services which had been denied to them for so long.
A
touching and humor-filled portrait of a remarkable piece of America.
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