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". In 1936 he was one of a triumvirate of African-American theatre artists who led the Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre Project after the departure of John Houseman. Houseman recommended Moss for the position, later describing him as "skillful, progressive, educated and sensitive to every changing breeze of Harlem opinion." Moss directed a successful production of The Show-Off (1937), its first presentation under the new leadership, at the Lafayette Theatre.[2]
Later he wrote The Negro Soldier for Frank Capra, a 1944 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.[3] 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".[4] 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 [5] and as a professor at the University of California at Irvine [1] in the Comparative Culture Program,[6] and made educational films about African-American history.[7]
