Thomas Fleming, West Coast's Oldest & Longest Running Black Journalist Sparkles on the Web by Max Millard, September 2000 Thomas C. Fleming, born in 1907, was the West Coast's oldest and longest-running black journalist. The co-founder in 1944 of the Sun-Reporter, Northern California's largest weekly African-American newspaper, he continued to write two articles a week for the paper from his home. In addition, Fleming produced more than 80 columns titled "Reflections on Black History," which were distributed by the National Newspaper Publishers Association and sent to more than 200 African-American newspapers nationwide. Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Fleming was initially raised by his grandmother, who he believes was a former slave. From age 8 to 11, he lived in Harlem, where he saw Marcus Garvey, experienced the excitement caused by World War I, and nearly became a victim in the great influenza epidemic which swept the country. In 1919 he moved to the small town of Chico in the heart of California's agriculturally rich Sacramento Valley. In 1926, after graduating from Chico High School, Fleming began his career as a bellhop for the Admiral Line, then spent five years as a cook for the Southern Pacific Railroad. He entered journalism in the early 1930s as an unpaid writer for the Spokesman, a progressive black paper in San Francisco. In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, he returned to Chico as a political science major at Chico State College, completing three semesters before returning to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1934. That same year, he worked briefly as a columnist for the Oakland Tribune, making him the only black journalist for a daily newspaper on the West Coast. No other would follow him for almost 30 years. In 1944 he was hired as founding editor of the Reporter, which later merged with another black paper, the Sun, to become the Sun-Reporter. For almost 50 years, the Sun-Reporter was published by Fleming's closest friend, the late civil rights giant Dr. Carlton Goodlett. After Goodlett's death in 1997, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to rename City Hall's address as 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place. In July 1997, Fleming retired as executive editor of the Sun-Reporter to concentrate on his memoirs, "Reflections on Black History," written in collaboration with Max Millard, a former copy editor and staff writer for the Sun-Reporter, who interviews Fleming on tape, blends the words with Fleming's writings, then fact-checks the result. The complete columns to date can be found on Fleming's web page at http://www.freepress.org/fleming/fleming.html. On his 90th birthday in 1997, Fleming self-published his first book, a 48-page collection of stories and photos from his early boyhood in Jacksonville and Harlem, which is available for $4 including postage. On his 91st birthday, he published the 100-page "Black Life in the Sacramento Valley 1850-1934," co-authored by Michele Shover, a professor of political science at California State University, Chico. He also has two 90-minute tapes of his memories, which can be purchased for $6 each including postage. A lifelong bachelor who lived alone, Thomas Fleming ws the 1997 winner of the Career Achievement Award for Print from the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Fleming passed away on November 21, 2006. He was 98 years old. ------- Flemings books and cassette tapes are available through by writing to Max Millard, 1312 Jackson St., #21, San Francisco, CA 94109. [back to top]

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