Sarah Lee Brown Fleming (1876-1955): Author Page
Sarah Lee Brown-Fleming (1876-1955) was a dedicated wife, mother, teacher, community activist, and writer. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, she grew up in Brooklyn, New York under challenging circumstances. Little is known about her childhood except that she often lacked basic necessities and received little encouragement from her parents. Her father, in particular, doubted her ambition to become a teacher and suggested that she work as a domestic instead. Despite these hardships, Brown-Fleming overcame poverty and racism to become the first African American teacher in the Brooklyn school system.
More is known about Brown-Fleming after she married Richard Stedman Fleming in 1902, with whom she had two children. When they moved to New Haven, Connecticut, Richard became the state’s first African American dentist. In New Haven, Sarah organized the New Haven Women’s Civic League (1929) and founded the Phillis Wheatley Home for Girls in 1936. Her efforts were widely recognized, and she became the first African American woman to be elected Connecticut’s “Mother of the Year.” In 1955, she was cited before Congress for her extensive community contributions and received the Sojourner Truth Award from the National Association for Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs.
While Brown-Fleming is more recognized for her civic work, she had a passion for the arts, writing songs, skits, and musicals, although none were published. Her first publication Hope’s Highway (1918) is a historical romance that explores the lives of formerly enslaved African Americans during Reconstruction. This was soon followed by a poetry collection, Clouds and Sunshine (1920), dedicated to her children and divided into three sections, where Fleming articulates a warm reverence for Black bodies and Black joy. The first section, named after the collection, is a reflection of both sadness and happiness, as indicated by the title. The second and third sections, titled “Dialect Poems” and “Race Poems,” respectively, address themes of race. Brown-Fleming utilizes African American Vernacular—a popular practice of the time—in poems like “Mammy” and “De Tango Lesson.” Most of her poetry follows traditional rhyme scheme and structure; however, notable exceptions like “Pictures” are written in free verse and depict snapshots of African American history.
Works Cited
Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era. United States, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014.
Emmanuel S. Nelson. African American Authors, 1745-1945 : A Bio-Bibliographical Critical
Sourcebook. Greenwood, 2000. EBSCOhost.
Maureen Honey, Ed. Shadowed Dreams: Women's Poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. United Kingdom, Rutgers University
Press, 2006.