This Kansas Citian was the First Black Woman to Produce a Film. KCQ Tells Her Story.

On Jan. 28, 1922, Billboard magazine ran a brief ad announcing the expansion of Kansas City’s Afro-American Film Exhibitors Company, which had just closed a contract with Theresa “Tressie” Souders of Kansas City for the distribution of her film “A Woman’s Error,” called “the first of its kind to be produced by a young woman of our race.”

One hundred years later, the Black Movie Hall of Fame, plans to honor Souders as a member of its inaugural class of inductees.

And yet, despite her claim to fame as the first African American woman to produce a film, almost nothing is known of Souders’ time in Kansas City or her life after “A Woman’s Error.” She gave no public interviews and no known photographs of her survive.

Read the rest of the story at KCHistory.org or on The Kansas City Star website. Plus, access The Kansas City Star articles, both past and present, on the Library website with a Library card.