Catherine Fleming Bruce

Catherine Fleming Bruce published the award-winning book, ‘The Sustainers: Being, Building and Doing Good through Activism in the Sacred Spaces of Civil Rights, Human Rights and Social Movements' in 2016. The Audubon Ballroom where Malcolm X was assassinated; the Greyhound bus station now serving as the Freedom Riders Bus Museum in Montgomery, Alabama; the South Carolina home of Modjeska Simkins, and Robben Island Prison where Nelson Mandela was held are some of the sites included. The book was awarded the 2017 Historic Preservation Book Prize from the University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation. She is the first African-American to receive the Book Prize.

Bruce founded TNOVSA LLC and TNOVSA Global Commons, as methods of engagement in transformational politics, global ethics and norms, and historic and cultural preservation. She was instrumental in preserving the home of South Carolina civil rights activist Modjeska Monteith Simkins, and is currently preserving the Visanska Starks House and Carriage House, both in Columbia, South Carolina. The latter is an institutional member of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience.

An alumna of Agnes Scott College, with a dual BA in English/Creative Writing and Art, Bruce received her Master of Arts in Mass Communication and Information Studies at the University of South Carolina, and pursued doctoral studies there in mass communication, philosophy and ethics, international relations and international law. She has worked in public television, and is a member of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). She has participated in such global governance efforts as the World Summit for the Information Society, held in Geneva and Tunis by the United Nations and the International Telecommunications Union.

Bruce also produced the award-winning SCETV production 'A Perfect Equality: Conflicts and Achievements of Historic Black Columbia', available on DVD from etvstore.org; it received a 1993 Certificate of Commendation from the American Association for State and Local History. Additional publications: ‘The globalization-friendly public sphere: contrasting paths to moral legitimacy and accountability’ in Public Sphere Reconsidered: Theories and Practices (2012) and ‘A Statue Past its Expiration Date’, a Guest column for the State (SC) Newspaper and the Free Times (SC) on removal of the Tillman Monument from the SC State House grounds, run in February 2008.

Bruce has a long history of civil rights engagement, including Occupy Columbia, an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement which successfully sued former SC Governor Nikki Haley; a 2012 founding officer of the Labor Progressive Caucus for her State’s Democratic Party. She runs several social media pages on governance and progressive thought. She received the Key to the City of Columbia Mississippi (MS) in 2016 for her efforts to assist Columbia MS and Columbia SC during natural disasters experienced by both cities in 2014 and 2015. Other awards: inclusion in Women of Excellence, Sumter (SC) Social Justice Consortium and recognition by Sumter City and County Council in 2012; a State of South Carolina Governor’s Proclamation and United States Postal Service plaque on the release of the ‘To Form a More Perfect Union’ Civil Rights stamp series in 2005.

Bruce has taught at Benedict College and Claflin University, and continues to work with statewide public interest non-profit organizations. She is currently employed by Palmetto Project, a statewide non-profit organization focused on health care, race relations, and other community initiatives. The Sustainers was selected for inclusion in the 2016 Mississippi Book Festival, and for presentations at the Association for the Study of African American Life and History conference in Richmond, Black Expo South and the Friends of the Chesterfield County Public Library Annual Meeting in South Carolina, the University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation Annual Book Prize lecture and ‘Sacred Spaces and Social Change’ with George Mason University’s Fall for the Book Festival in Alexandria, Virginia. She lives in Columbia, South Carolina and has one son who serves in the US Military.