Jessie Maple is a pioneering independent African American filmmaker. After serving as an apprentice film editor on the studio features Shaft’s Big Score (1972) and The Super Cops (1974), Maple became the first Black woman to join the International Photographers of Motion Picture & Television Union in 1975. She recounted her challenges and experiences of breaking into the union and film profession in her 1977 book How to Become a Union Camerawoman. After co-founding LCJ Film Productions with husband Leroy Patton in 1974, Maple produced and directed several short documentaries and feature films throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including Will (1981), the first feature-length independent film produced by an African American woman. Maple also founded the 20 West Theatre in Harlem, which served as a showplace for independent Black filmmakers from 1982 until its closing in 1992.

The Jessie Maple Collection consists of Maple’s film projects, publications, photographs, and professional records and correspondences. In addition to copies of seven of her films (including Methadone: Evil Spirit or Wonder Drug? [1975-76], Will, and Twice as Nice [1988]), the collection also contains materials documenting the discrimination lawsuits she filed in order to work as a cameraperson in the 1970s.

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