Carlton Moss

Carlton Moss was born on the fourteenth of February 1909 in Newark, New Jersey, and came of age in the years when African American artists were claiming the stage and screen as their own. He studied at Morgan State College and later at Columbia University, and by the mid-1930s he had become a central figure in Black theater, directing the Harlem Unit of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Theatre Project and writing for national radio.

During the Second World War, Moss wrote and appeared in "The Negro Soldier" (1944), produced under Frank Capra's U.S. Army Signal Corps unit. The film became the principal official documentary honoring the service and dignity of the Black American soldier. Though its sharper edges were softened in production, it broke ground by portraying African Americans not as caricatures but as full citizens contributing mightily to their nation.

After the war, Moss devoted himself to independent educational cinema. He directed "Frederick Douglass: The House on Cedar Hill" (1953), a portrait of the great abolitionist, and co-founded Artisan Productions with animator William Hurtz to produce short films illuminating African American history and achievement. He carried this mission into the classroom, teaching film at Fisk University and at the University of California, Irvine, from 1970 until 1994.

Carlton Moss died on the tenth of August 1997 in Los Angeles. Across six decades he insisted the screen tell the truth of Black American life with honor. May his steadfast vision be remembered among the honored.