Carlton Moss was born on February 14, 1909, in Newark, New Jersey, as a screenwriter, filmmaker, actor, and social critic. He grew up in both New Jersey and North Carolina as the son of Frederick Douglass Moss, a coachman for a wealthy family, and Sarah Vincent Moss. He was fascinated by Black history as a child. Later, as a student at Morgan College (now Morgan State University) in Baltimore, Maryland, he stood out. He performed and wrote for the Morgan Players theater troupe while there.
Moss moved to New York City’s Harlem after graduating in 1930, hoping to pursue a career in theater. He began as a theater doorman, but he also spent a significant amount of time absorbing and analyzing Black popular culture in the country’s most influential Black community. Moss was particularly concerned about stereotypical images of Blacks on the radio. When the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) hired him as its first African American writer in 1931, he took advantage of the opportunity to portray Blacks realistically and humanely in his series of Careless Love radio plays set in the South. Professional Black actors performed in the 15- to 30-minute plays.
They stood in sharp contrast to the buffoonery of Amos ‘n’ Andy characters acted by whites who were wildly popular during the Great Depression and beyond.
Moss worked with Oscar Micheaux on several films in the mid-1930s, but they fell out over the Black filmmaker’s policy of only hiring white camera operators. He then found work as John Houseman’s chief assistant director in the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) at Harlem’s Lafayette Theater. He was in charge of artistic matters, publicity, and marketing for the company’s productions. When Houseman and Orson Welles left the Negro Theatre Project (the FTP’s Black unit) in 1936, Moss and two other African-Americans, Harry Edwards and Augustus Smith, took over. They refocused productions on social inequity and resistance to injustice. The FTP was closed down in 1939 due to underfunding and the unsubstantiated charge of Communist influence by conservative politicians.
Within months after the United States entered World War II in December 1941, pressure from Black leaders to ease racial discrimination against Black in the military led to the federal government launching a media campaign to inspire loyalty in Black communities. The most effective effort was a “documentary film” initially assigned to whites to direct, which eventually fell to Moss. Titled The Negro Soldier, much of the film’s anger and militancy were toned down on the advice of movie director Frank Capra. Nonetheless, the final product released in 1944 highlighted African American soldiers’ long, valiant service. Though Moss regretted he could not express his true sentiments regarding America’s anti-Black racism, the film is remembered as his most significant career achievement.
Moss would never be able to fulfill his desire for steady employment or unrestricted artistic expression in Hollywood due to the industry’s persistent racism. Moss made ends meet by teaching and producing educational and industrial films for schools, corporations, and the government. He believed that a copy of The Negro Soldier sent to President Harry S. Truman influenced him to issue an Executive Order prohibiting racial discrimination in the military in 1948. Moss outlived his wife, Lynn Moss, but died on August 10, 1997, in Los Angeles, at the age of 88.