Pioneer in Film, Theater & Civil Rights
Kathleen Collins (1942–1988) was a groundbreaking Black filmmaker, playwright, teacher, and activist whose work broke barriers of race, gender, and representation. Best known for her feature films Losing Ground and The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy, she was one of the first Black American women to write and direct a feature-length film.
Her stories center on complex, intelligent Black characters—particularly women—navigating art, love, and selfhood. Beyond her artistic achievements, Collins was deeply committed to social justice, working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the Civil Rights Movement and teaching generations of students to see the world—and themselves—through a more expansive lens.
She died in 1988 at just 46, leaving behind unfinished works, an indelible legacy, and a body of art that continues to inspire.
Biography in Brief
Born in Jersey City, NJ, in 1942, Collins studied at Skidmore College and the Sorbonne. She was an activist with SNCC during the Civil Rights Movement, working to register Black voters in the segregated South and enduring multiple arrests for her activism, credited as being one of two people who penned MLK’s I Have A Dream speech.
In her creative career, she moved fluidly between theater and film. Her best-known works include the film Losing Ground, the plays In the Midnight Hour and The Brothers, and a posthumously published short story collection Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? (Ecco Press, 2016). She raised two children, Nina and Emilio, in Piermont, NY, and remained deeply committed to telling stories rarely seen on screen or stage.
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