Introduction
Carlton Moss (February 14, 1909 in Newark, New Jersey – August 10, 1997) was an African-American screenwriter, actor and film director. Moss directed the documentary Frederick Douglass: The House on Cedar Hill.
Biography
Moss was raised in both North Carolina and Newark. He attended Morgan State University, where he formed an acting troupe called "Toward a Black Theater". Later he wrote The Negro Soldier for Frank Capra, a propaganda film encouraging racial harmony among World War II soldiers and specifically encouraging African-American men to enlist. After this film he became an important figure in independent cinema of African Americans In 1944 Moss went to Europe and made the film Teamwork, a documentary about the work of an African-American quartermaster unit known as "The Redball Express". He had the chance to work with Elia Kazan on Pinky but left the project, as he felt it demeaning to blacks. He later taught as a guest lecturer at Fisk University in Nashvilleand as a professor at the University of California at Irvinein the Comparative Culture Program, and made educational films about African-American history.
Filmography
- The Negro Soldier (1943)
- Teamwork (1944)
- Frederick Douglass: The House on Cedar Hill (1953)
- George Washington Carver (1959)
- Black Genesis: The Art of Tribal Africa (1970)
- Portraits in Black: Paul Lawrence Dunbar: America's First Black Poet (1972)
- The Afro-American Artist (1976)
- Portraits in Black: Two Centuries of Black American Art (1976)
- Portraits in Black: The Gift of the Black Folk (1978)
- All the World's A Stage (1979)
- Drawings from Life: Charles White (1980)
- Forever Free (1983)