Who was Sarah Mae Flemming?

Too many of Columbia’s pivotal moments and landmark decisions have been forgotten. Even more stories have never been heard. A complete rendering of South Carolina's Civil Rights Movement and its dramatic impact on the quest for democracy and social justice does not exist.

In Columbia, South Carolina's capital city, courageous student activists, attorneys, and civil rights organizations waged a tenacious campaign to transform our community. Facing stiff opposition, these freedom fighters took action and forever changed a city, state, and nation.

Keep in mind that there are good and mislead people in all races.  We do not fault the whole because of a part.  Remember the rain falls on everyone, even if you have an umbrella, and the sun shines on us all.  Do your best not to carry ill-feelings towards one another.

An unknown heroine, lost in obscurity, like so many others, was returned to the forefront recently. Sarah Mae Flemming Brown (June 28, 1933-June 16, 1993), an African American woman was expelled from a bus in Columbia, South Carolina, seventeen months before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat on an Alabama bus in 1955. Flemming's lawsuit against the bus company played an important role later in the Parks case. But it never received the press that it deserved.

On June 22, 1954, Flemming boarded a bus to go to work. She took the only empty seat, which she believed began the rows in which black riders were allowed to sit. The bus driver, challenged and humiliated her. The kind and caring house worker signaled to get off at the next stop. The bus driver blocked her attempt to exit through the front of the bus and punched her in the stomach as he ordered her out the rear door. Considering how packed the back of the bus was, the easiest exit was through the front door. But, I suppose the bus driver felt that most domestics are to enter and leave through the back doors on buses like they did in the homes they took care of, including the children. It was unfortunate that medical records associated with this assault were not found.

Local civil rights activists heard of ordeal and enlisted attorney Phillip Wittenberg, a white attorney in Columbia, to represent her. Flemming v. South Carolina Electric and Gas (SCE and G) was filed on July 21, 1954 in U.S. District Court. The allegation was that Flemming's Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection had been violated. On February 16, 1955, Federal District Judge George Bell Timmerman, Sr. dismissed the case. 

His son, George Bell Timmerman, Jr., became the 105th governor of South Carolina from 1955 to 1959. He governed the Statehouse in a time of profound and painful social change after the Supreme Court's ruling in 1954 declaring segregated public schools unconstitutional. Mr. Timmerman fought the changes brought by the decision as a defender of what he called "the integrity of the races" and "our customs and institutions."  He took office as the state's last segregationist Governor, urging Congress to limit the authority of the United States Supreme Court. He regarded Northern insistence on racial integration as hypocritical. He continued his father’s practices of maintaining segregation through any means necessary.  He wanted to keep African-Americans separated and no where close to being equal.

Ms. Flemming appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and her case was argued on June 21, 1955. The Fourth Circuit reversed Judge Timmerman on July 14, 1955 and "remanded the case for further proceedings."

SCE and G appealed the decision of the Appeals Court. On April 23, 1956, the United States Supreme Court dismissed SCE and G’s appeal, and on June 13, 1956, Judge Timmerman dismissed the case once again. Due to imtimidations, threats, and cross-burnings, Mr. Wittenberg decided not to handle a second appeal and turned the case over to Thurgood Marshall and Robert Carter of the NAACP.  He later moved out of Columbia.  For the third trial, Lincoln Jenkins, Jr. and Matthew J. Perry represented Ms. Flemming and the jury quickly found in the bus company's favor, SCE and G. By that time, the Montgomery bus boycott and the decision in Browder v. Gayle had been rendered, so a third appeal was not filed. Let’s note that this case was heard before a three-judge panel in Montgomery Alabama, not before one judge. That court ruled on June 13, 1956, that bus segregation was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment protections for equal treatment

During her legal case, Sarah Mae Flemming married John Brown of Gaston County, North Carolina. The couple had three children. Sarah Mae Flemming Brown died of a heart attack brought on by diabetes on June 16, 1993, just before her 60th birthday. She was buried in the Goodwill Baptist Church cemetery in Eastover, South Carolina.

In 2005, a documentary titled Before Rosa: The Unsung Contribution Of Sarah Mae Flemming aired on PBS stations across the United States.

Mrs. Flemming vowed to never ride on SCE and G buses after the lawsuit and she never did. We should find ways to respect our unsung heroes and heroines but do so that they will never be forgotten.  Here's another link from civil rights activists in 2005 acknowledging Ms. Flemming to Congress James Clyburn.