Carl Brandon Society
| Fan Club | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Carl Brandon Society |
| Dates: | 1999- |
| Founder(s): | Carl Brandon Society |
| Leadership: | |
| Country based in: | U.S. |
| Focus: | representation of people of color in science fiction |
| External Links: | Carl Brandon Society website (via Wayback Apr 17/24) |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Carl Brandon Society is a group "dedicated to addressing the representation of people of color in the fantastical genres such as science fiction, fantasy and horror" founded in 1999 at the feminist science fiction convention WisCon in Madison, Wisconsin, after a discussion largely in response to the article "Racism and Science Fiction," written by Samuel R. Delany for the New York Review of Science Fiction.
It is named after Carl Brandon, the hoax fan created by active fans in the San Francisco Bay Area, who became a BNF and was supposedly African-American. By the time the hoax got started, it had been close to a quarter of a century since fandom had seen a prominent black participant: Warren Fitzgerald, the first president of the first New York City science fiction club (and some say the first "real" SF club), the Scienceers, in whose Harlem home the club met.
The Carl Brandon Society presents two awards each year. The Carl Brandon Parallax Award is given to works of speculative fiction created by a self-identified person of color. The Carl Brandon Kindred Award is given to any work of speculative fiction dealing with issues of race and ethnicity; nominees may be of any racial or ethnic group. The awards have been presented by the Carl Brandon Society since 2005.
In addition to Delany, until recently the most prominent African-American professional was Octavia Butler, although the rise of Afrofuturism has changed that. In fandom, Elliot K. Shorter and Vijay Bowen, both of whom were black, ran for and won the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund (TAFF).