White Army veteran and Castner Knott employee whose confrontation with The StephensonS became A catalyst for the events of 1946
Billy Fleming was a white World War II veteran who worked at the Castner Knott department store on Columbia’s town square, reportedly in a business connected to his father. On February 25, 1946, he became involved in a dispute with Gladys Stephenson over a radio she had left at the store for repair.
Accounts differ on the precise sequence of the confrontation. Gladys and her son James were preparing to leave when the disagreement continued, and James intervened on his mother’s behalf. The encounter became physical, and James struck Fleming, sending him through the store’s plate-glass window and badly cutting his leg. White men nearby then joined the fight and attacked James, while Gladys was also struck as she tried to protect her son.
Police arrested James and Gladys but did not take Fleming or the other white men involved into custody. The Stephensons’ charges were later elevated to attempted murder, and the threat that James might be taken from jail and lynched led Columbia’s Black community to organize for his protection. The background materials provide little information about Fleming’s life before his military service or after 1946.
