Talk:Black & White

Vincent Williams

4e said "I intend to inform the LASFS of my discovery of this Negro fan, and ask if the club would have any objection to my inviting him to meetings... The Negro servifan’s name is Vincent Williams. He’s a LA reader. As a passifan, he's been reading omnivorously the past 3 years."

I assume from the lack of Google hits on site:fanac.org that Mr. Williams did not receive, or did not accept, any such invitation. And I'm not sure whether he might have been the same Vincent Williams who wrote "Tricks of the Trader" for Sparx 6, which might have been amusingly misdescribed as "a worthwhile piece on collector's swaps" (or that might have been another piece).

Does anyone else know anything about these fellows? — Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 11:56, 27 April 2023 (PDT)

No Vincent Williams listed among LASFS’s members, but that’s not definitive, as their early records are sketchy.

—Leah Zeldes Smith (talk) 14:42, 27 April 2023 (PDT)

Hmm. Only one WW2 draft card for a Vincent Williams with a Los Angeles address: Vincent Elgin Williams (December 7, 1917 – January 20, 1996), who served in the Army from December 17, 1942 to November 12, 1945, with a change of status on April 15, 1944 which is explained below. He appears to have lived in Los Angeles most or all of his life and was a 22-year-old UCLA student when he registered for the draft. And he was a Tuskeegee Airman—the official list includes "Williams, Vincent E., class number 44-D-SE, graduation date 4/15/1944, rank Flt. Officer, serial number T62813, hometown Los Angeles CA".

That doesn't prove that he was the fan 4e met, but a recently graduated flight officer in the Army Air Corps might well have served at Fort MacArthur in the summer of 1944, and might well have been a science fiction reader. I feel like this is plausible but unproven.

Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 11:38, 28 April 2023 (PDT)