Neema Barnette is a commercially successful director of films and TV series, including Civil Brand, Woman Thou Art Loosed: On the 7th Day, Queen Sugar and Harlem. The winner of both a Peabody and an Emmy, Barnette is the first African-American woman sitcom director (a 1986 episode of What’s Happening Now) and the first African-American woman to sign a three-picture deal with Sony.