The cause was related to a number of respiratory ailments, said his son Charles Fleming.
Born and bred in the Jim Crow South, Fleming worked his way through small North Carolina newspapers to become chief of Newsweek's Atlanta bureau in 1961. In the next few years, he covered some of the most dramatic clashes that churned the South as the fight over racial injustice escalated.
He was nearly shot in 1962 during riots at the University of Mississippi after James Meredith's admission as the first African-American student.
