Newspaper editor, teacher, writer, activist, and filmmaker, Maria P. Hill is the first African American women to produce and direct a feature film, 1923’s silent movie Flames of Wrath (the first African American women to direct a film is Tessie Souders, who directed 1922’s A Women’s Error). Flames of Wrath would be the only film made by Williams, who was best known for her work as a writer, journalist, and editor, most notably for the newspaper The Woman’s Voice, which she began publishing in 1896. Williams was murdered in 1932, and the case was never solved.
