Thomas C. Fleming (1907-2006) was a legendary African American journalist in San Francisco whose career spanned 61 years, from World War II until the year before his death. A gifted storyteller with an uncanny memory, he began writing his memoirs in his late 80s as a series of columns for the Black Press of America. Assisted by veteran journalist Max Millard, Fleming expanded the columns into two volumes about his early life. The first volume, “Reflections on Black History, Jacksonville and Harlem, 1907-1919,” covers the years from his birth in segregated Jacksonville, Florida to his extended stay in Harlem, New York City.

The second volume, “Black Life in the Sacramento Valley, 1919-1934,” covers Fleming’s adolescent years and early adulthood in Chico, California. In all of his writings, Fleming remained acutely aware of the black history surrounding him, and he spices his writings with personal anecdotes about his brushes with some of the most famous African Americans of his time, including Bert Williams, Marcus Garvey and Ralph Bunche.