Archives West Finding Aid

Carlton Moss (February 14, 1909 - August 10, 1997) was an African American screenwriter and film director. Moss was raised in both North Carolina and New Jersey. 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 Nashville and as a professor at the University of California at Irvine in the Comparative Culture Program, and made educational films about African-American history.