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Flemister, who died last week, was the first Black woman to serve as a special agent in the 1970s, but was forced out by racial discrimination. She spent the next three decades in the foreign service.
Flemister, who died last week, was the first Black woman to serve as a special agent in the 1970s, but was forced out by racial discrimination. She spent the next three decades in the foreign service.
Flemister's death was caused by a respiratory failure related to her Alzheimer’s disease that caused her to retire by age 59.
It took the Secret Service nearly a century to hire its first Black special agent, Charles L. Gittens, in 1956. Another 15 years would pass before the organization brought on its first female agents, and still a few more years went by before Zandra I. Flemister became the first Black woman in that role in 1974.
Zandra Flemister, the first Black woman to enter the Secret Service when she joined in 1974, has passed away at the age of 71.