BEN CARTER

Ben Carter was a black African American singer from the 1930s to the 1940s. He performed with the Ben Carter Choir. He also was the straight man to Mantan Moreland in a vaudeville act and had a very few solo dramatic movies, usually in stereotyped parts, typical of that era. However, he did all he could to break the barriers in show business that black performers faced in the 1930s and 1940s! He started a casting agency for black African American actors in Hollywood in the 1930s, and he claimed that he represented all the black actors in Gone with the Wind! He was one of the first black performers to be signed to a 7 year contract by a major Hollywood studio, in his case 20th Century-Fox. Sadly, he contracted diptheria, and he passed away in 1946 at the age of 35, or no doubt he would have had many more accomplishments.