Kathleen Collins was a brilliant writer, filmmaker, educator, and civil rights activist who fought for Black voting rights. She authored many types of creative work, including screenplays, poetry, and stage plays, many of which found notoriety after she died from breast cancer in 1988. Collins's work paved the way for the Black women directors of today. Her features The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy (1980) and Losing Ground (1982) will go down in film history as a stepping stone for the culture and women's cinema.