This ‘hidden figure’ of entomology fought for civil rights

Margaret S. Collins was a pioneering Black entomologist in the mid-century U.S. who specialized in termites.

Her son recalls how she gave rides to people boycotting racially segregated buses in Tallahassee , Florida .

Collins' childhood shared some details with mathematician Katherine Johnson , portrayed in the beloved 2016 book and movie Hidden Figures .

Katherine Johnson , a math prodigy, and reindeer-skeptic Collins went to West Virginia State College , now W. Virginia State University .

Collins had planned to major in biology, but lessons she described as “stereotyped, dull and malodorous” and a “gruff and frightening” teacher sapped her interest.

In a chance conversation at class registration, she met American biologist and termite maestro Alfred Emerson .

Margaret Collins explored how some termite species avoid drying to a crisp in a desert while others need steaming rainforests.

By 1958 , she had collected and tested termites’ ability for what she called “water relations” in nine of the 13 species known in Florida , including those from the Everglades and the Florida Keys .

The family farmhouse also came under threat from violent racists.