Catherine Fleming Bruce

American author, preservationist, and activist from South Carolina and a member of the Democratic Party. Born in Kentucky and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, she is the daughter of school teacher Emma Fleming and the late Louis Fleming, who served as Chairman of Sumter County Council. She earned a bachelor's degree from Agnes Scott College and a master's degree in mass communication and information studies from the University of South Carolina, where she also pursued doctoral studies. In 1995 she founded the Collaborative for Community Trust, which preserved the Modjeska Simkins House as a human rights center and permanent Columbia landmark on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. She is the author of 'The Sustainers: Being, Building and Doing Good through Activism in the Sacred Spaces of Civil Rights, Human Rights and Social Movements' and became the first African American to win the University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation Book Prize in 2017. In 2016 she served as foreman of the South Carolina State Grand Jury for the Statehouse corruption investigation, and she has served as Director of Operations for the Richland County Democratic Party. She ran for U.S. Senate in 2022, leading the Democratic primary and advancing to the runoff, and is running as a write-in candidate in the 2026 general election.