A small town start
Thomas Fleming has been embraced as something of a hometown hero. As an adult, he would go on to co-found the Sun-Reporter, a historic Black newspaper that began in San Francisco in 1944, and is still in circulation today. But before he moved to the Bay, Fleming got his start writing for newspapers here in Chico.
"I wrote for the Wildcat at Chico State University, that was the name of the paper up there," Fleming said in a 1999 interview at the San Francisco Public Library. "I tell everybody I went to every school in Chico: Grammar school, high school and Chico State."
Chico childhood
Fleming moved to Chico in 1919 when he was 11. In his later columns at the Sun-Reporter, he wrote about what it was like growing up in Chico.
"I have told mainly about the difficulties of being part of a small Black minority in a white-dominated population," he wrote. "But most of my memories of Chico are happy ones, and my story would not be complete without telling about the good times I had, in a place where the kids of all races had a lot of freedom to do what they wanted."
But he also encountered racism during his time in Chico. He wrote about arming himself and sitting on his porch in case a nearby Klan march came by his house. He was the first Black man to enroll at the college, though he left before finishing his degree. Then he moved to the Bay Area and began writing for newspapers there.
Founding the Sun-Reporter
In San Francisco, Fleming went on to found a paper called the Reporter. His longtime friend Carlton Goodlett won ownership of another paper, the Sun, in a poker game. So the two decided to merge the paper, creating the Sun-Reporter in 1944. It went on to become a major Black newspaper of the time, and covered statewide and national stories.
Fleming edited the paper for decades, and remained a columnist after he retired. In total, he wrote for the paper for over 60 years.
"[Fleming] is a witness to everything that happens in the Black community from 1944 up until after Black Power," said James Taylor, professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. He's writing a book in part about Fleming.
"That's everything in the West Coast. That's the student revolution, that's over at Berkeley, that's Black Panthers, that's Black power, that's the LA riots of 1965," Taylor said.
Taylor says Fleming's writings, some of which are archived online and collected into a book, are invaluable historical documents. He says Fleming's perspective as a Black man on the West Coast distinguishes him from other notable Black journalists of the era.
"If you were working professionally as a journalist, in the East Coast, there's more of a Black, white racial binary," Taylor said. "Whereas in the West Coast, the Chinese community, Japanese community, the Russian community, the Native American community, the different white populations, the African American population, have all been interacting for decades."
Fleming and the People's Temple
But like many historical figures, Fleming wasn't without controversy. Fleming and Goodlett were public supporters of Jim Jones, the cult leader who went on to orchestrate a mass-suicide of his followers with cyanide laced fruit punch in Guyana in 1978. Jones, a white pastor, positioned himself as a civil rights activist, and an alternative to conservative Black churches. The majority of his followers were Black, as were the victims of the Jonestown massacre.
Taylor's book details the support Jones received from Goodlett and Fleming during his time in San Francisco, along with San Francisco mayor Willie Brown.
"These are the main people that supported that man and made him possible in San Francisco," Taylor said. "These three men, Willie Brown, Goodlett and Fleming, they arrogantly put down the Black church that had done decades of work. And then Jim Jones pops up, and because he fits their left radical moment, they embrace him and renounce the very institution that made all of them significant in San Francisco."
Despite his association with Jones, Taylor said students of history should still take time to study Fleming's work.
"Despite the asterisk of Jim Jones and people's temple, and I think it should be an asterisk on Thomas Fleming and Goodlett. They made significant contributions as journalists," Taylor said. "Writing at a time where a lot of [their] writing was being done to, for, and by the Black community. Everyone didn't have that skill set, but Fleming obviously did, and used it for most of his life."
Fleming wrote for the paper for over 60 years, well into his 90s. He stopped writing editorials in 2005, and died in 2006 at the age of 98.
