Maria P. Williams

Maria Priscilla Thurston Williams (1866–1932) was a newspaper editor, film producer, author, and scriptwriter. She is credited as the first African-American woman film producer for the silent crime drama The Flames of Wrath in 1923. A one-time school teacher, Williams had a history of activism, independence and interest in the liberal arts, which led her first to newspapers, then lastly to film production, script-writing and acting. She wrote her memoir in 1916 titled My Work and Public Sentiment, in which she identified herself as a national organizer and speaker with the Good Citizens League, and stated that ten percent of the proceeds would go to suppressing crime among African Americans.

History Williams served as editor-in-chief (1891–1894) of the Kansas City weekly New Era. In 1916, Williams wrote and published her memoir. With Williams serving both as the company's secretary and treasurer, the couple went on to co-found Western Film Producing Co. and Booking Exchange, Aimee Dixon Anthony stated that Williams could also reasonably be considered the film's director, given how undifferentiated the two roles were at that time. That distinction is typically granted to Tressie Souders, however, who served as director of 1922's A Woman's Error , but there is no evidence Souders' film was ever released.