Completed just before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Native Land is an emotionally charged, uncompromising chronicle of the "fascist-minded on our own soil," and an unvarnished condemnation of Big Business. Mixing politically driven documentary, Paul Strand's resonant photography, dramatic re-enactments, and often chilling commentary recited by Paul Robeson, this unique project from Frontier Films recounts the systematic abuse of civil liberties that punctuated the early 1930s. Based on testimony from the 1938 U.S. Senate La Follette Committee on Civil Liberties, nine disquieting stories (e.g., sharecroppers pursued and murdered by vigilantes, unions infiltrated and corrupted by company-paid operatives) illustrate violations of the Bill of Rights. Connecting the episodes are beautifully wrought American tableaux that evoke the promise of America. The timing of Native Land couldn't have been worse. When it opened in May 1942, the U.S. had just entered the war against fascism abroad; the nation now sought an expedient unity between capital and labor. When the war ended, Native Land found itself confronted by the blacklists of the McCarthy era and was withdrawn from domestic distribution until the sixties.