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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Zandra Flemister blazed a tough trail in the Secret Service. Now she's getting credit
Zandra Flemister, the first Black woman to serve as a special agent in the U.S. Secret Service, died last week at age 71. She is being remembered as a pioneer at the agency, which she left after four years because of racial discrimination.
She went on to spend over three decades as a foreign service officer, rising to the upper ranks of senior foreign service before Alzheimer's disease forced her to retire in 2011. She did so while juggling3 family responsibilities, including raising her son, who was diagnosed with autism as a child.
"The level of accomplishments4 that my wife managed ... under the conditions that she lived, that to me says a hell of a lot about the woman," Flemister's husband, John Collinge, told NPR in a phone interview.
Flemister's death — of Alzheimer's complications and publicized in a Washington Post obituary5 — has renewed attention to her trailblazing stint6 at the Secret Service in the 1970s.
"I've gotten an incredible outpouring from Black women Secret Service agents past and present, and they are looking to her now as, I guess I would say, a forgotten pioneer who has been rescued from oblivion," Collinge said, of the emails and calls he has gotten in recent days.
Flemister wasn't aware of the historic nature of her own role until she started in August of 1974, a week before President Richard Nixon's resignation, according to Collinge.
And she experienced discrimination and tokenization throughout her time at the agency, including being relegated7 to mostly undercover and lower-paying duties, getting propositioned by male colleagues on overnight assignments, being denied recognition for exemplary work and facing a constant barrage8 of racist9 comments and slurs10, often aimed at her directly.
Flemister stayed with the agency because she wanted to be a "trailblazer for other African-American women," as she wrote in an affidavit11 filed in support of a 2000 class-action lawsuit12 alleging13 racial discrimination within the Secret Service (which settled for $24 million in 2017).
But she was forced to change course, ultimately taking a new job — and a pay cut — at the State Department in 1978, launching an adventure-packed career in the foreign service.
Her three decades of experience there included "running interagency visa screening programs in Pakistan and South Korea, establishing a multinational14 anti-visa fraud working group in London, and extensive counter-narcotics experience in Pakistan and the department," as Collinge wrote in a 2016 Foreign Service Journal article detailing her journey with dementia.
Flemister had a reputation for being "absolutely unflappable in a crisis" and able to "quietly tutor people without humiliating them," Collinge said. She was respected for her deep understanding of consular15 law and willingness to take on difficult jobs.
Collinge, himself a retired16 CIA officer, described Flemister as a "classic New Englander" — very introverted and reserved, especially when it came to her career.
"She learned very, very early on that she had to carry herself very carefully as a professional Black woman," he said. "There was always reserve and care in how she presented herself professionally."
But he also remembers her love of travel — whether to D.C.-area beaches or European cities during her embassy assignments — and her dry sense of humor.
"Zandra and I had a little routine between ourselves where I would turn to her and say 'You can be replaced,' and she would turn to me and say 'But not easily,' " Collinge recalled. "Now that is the absolute truth, and I sure learned that after she slipped into her dementia."
The highs and lows of Flemister's Secret Service years
Flemister was born in Frankfurt to a U.S. Army sergeant17 and government microfilm technician, and spent the first four or five years of her life in Germany and France before her parents separated and she moved with her mom to Connecticut.
She went to Northeastern University on a work-study program, graduating with a degree in political science. Flemister would later recall that "it was government service for which I had prepared, and to government service I was destined18 to go," according to the Post.
After a yearlong stint working as a department store buyer, Flemister met a Secret Service recruiter at a job fair who told her she was overqualified for the uniformed service and encouraged her to apply to be a special agent instead.
She got the job, packed everything she could fit into her AMC Hornet and headed down to the Washington Field Office in August 1974.
"That was the point at which she discovered she was a racial pioneer," Collinge said. "No one said anything to her. I do not believe there was any preparation for her as a racial pioneer and there certainly was no effort to provide her with any level of support."
Flemister was mostly assigned to undercover, counterfeit19 and treasury20 fraud work, though did work some notable protective details — including for Bob Dole's wife Elizabeth while he was running for vice1 president and first daughters Susan Ford21 and Amy Carter (discreetly accompanying them to dates and elementary school classes, respectively).
Collinge said she was a particular favorite of Lady Bird Johnson, who had lifetime Secret Service protection as a former first lady and would specifically request that Flemister come with her on her regular visits to see "critters" at the National Zoo (though she later wrote that those duties pulled her away from other work that would have advanced her career).
Flemister also picked up special skills like skiing (to join President Gerald Ford on his ski trips to Colorado) and handling a variety of weapons in order to qualify on a shooting range each month.
But she struggled to be taken seriously by her colleagues and supervisors22 on a daily basis and felt she wouldn't be able to advance at the agency in the long term.
At one point, a superior told her that she'd have to get rid of her Afro-style hairdo in order to get assigned to more prestigious23 and lucrative24 security details. Flemister did, but later wrote that she felt like "the show African-American female agent that the Secret Service rotated around to different details to make it appear racially diverse."
One colleague taped an image of a gorilla25 over Flemister's photo on her ID card, while another gestured to her in the office and asked "Whose prisoner is she?" Flemister said that on presidential visits to Senegal and Grenada, she heard white agents refer to the leaders of those countries using the n-word, and wasn't aware of any action being taken after she reported it.
"With my requests for transfers to career-enhancing squads26 consistently denied, my credibility and competency constantly questioned, and the common use of racial epithets27 in my presence, I saw the handwriting on the wall," Flemister wrote, according to a copy of the affidavit shared with NPR. "Because of my race I would never be allowed to have a successful career in the Secret Service."
Collinge said Flemister was "so disgusted at the persistence28 of the racism29 she had encountered" that she volunteered to submit an affidavit in early 2001, though was not personally a plaintiff in the lawsuit (it was limited to current officers) and was deep in the throes of dementia by the time it was settled.
He isn't sure how long Flemister had initially30 planned to stay in the Secret Service, but described the foreign service as "her true passion."
The two were in the same entering class, and after they started dating (with a long-distance romance including 18 months of letter-writing from their foreign postings) she told him about her time at the Secret Service. She said she knew within her first year on the job that she would have been stuck doing the same type of work for the next 20.
"I would be a shriveled-up, bitter husk and I did not want that," he recalls her saying.
Honoring Flemister and the legacy31 she leaves behind
In statements issued after Flemister's death, the Secret Service honored her as a trailblazer who paved the way for a future generation of agents — and stressed that the agency's culture has changed for the better in the decades since.
"As it relates to the adversity and hardships that Special Agent Flemister encountered in the 1970's, that agency no longer exists," communications chief Anthony Guglielmi told NPR over email.
He said its status as the global leader in protective operations and safeguarding the U.S. financial system "is in large part due to Special Agent Flemister and the agents who followed in her footsteps to create a collaborative workforce32 that is valued for their professional and cultural diversity and experiences."
One of the agents who followed — albeit33 unknowingly — in Flemister's footsteps was former Secret Service Assistant Director Renee Triplett.
Triplett arrived at the Washington Field Office in 1989 and retired in 2016 as the first Black woman to serve in that executive-level position, which oversees34 human resources and personnel security management.
Triplett told NPR that she first learned about Flemister in 2018, when a friend showed her a Women's History Month flier honoring female firsts in the Secret Service that included her name as well as Flemister's.
"To me, this was the first recognition of who the first Black female [special agent] was," Triplett says. "I thought, 'Wow,' because it was in the 1970s ... I knew the history of when, generally, the first women were hired within the agency, but I never had an understanding of when the first Black female had ever been hired."
It was only after Flemister's death that Triplett learned from the Post's obituary how difficult her time at the agency had been, a story that she called "heartbreaking" to read.
While her own experience was different, she doesn't doubt Flemister's account. Triplett explains that agents are typically given incrementally35 challenging assignments to show they're ready for more responsibility and eventually compete for supervisory positions, which would have made signs of trouble clear to Flemister even early on.
"Even in moments where it looked like they were being responsible enough to give her the assignments that were necessary and part of her duty ... they were not of the complexity36 or the rigor37 that would develop her and tune38 her to more challenging work and taking on more responsibilities," Triplett says.
That kind of treatment would have been all the more painful because Flemister and her counterparts had all gone through the same rigorous training to get their jobs and should have theoretically entered the agency on an even playing field.
"We aren't trained differently than men. We aren't trained differently than our counterparts who are not Black or who are not Hispanic," she says. "And I think in a rational person's mind that means we all know how to do the job the same way."
She notes that many people had different mindsets in the 1970s, not so far from the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, and that it was brave of Flemister to want to follow her dream of government service anyway.
Triplett says the agency is a much more diverse and equitable39 place now than it was during Flemister's early days or even her own. She joined as just the fifth Black woman to serve as special agent, but estimates there were at least two dozen others by the time she retired.
She attributes that to a few developments, including robust40 DEI efforts and a shift from treating certain career tracks (like cyber forensic41 investigations) from competitive specialties42 to part of the core curriculum.
Most importantly, Triplett says, is increased exposure — people are seeing more women and people of color in leadership positions, which shows them what's possible for themselves. That certainly wasn't the case during Flemister's time, she adds.
"Imagine that not being in existence in the 1970s for someone who's coming in the organization, who in America doesn't even see this," she marvels43. "But this is the career path she wanted when even in America it didn't seem possible for a Black person to excel in the manner that she did ... she had a great and fantastic career at the State Department."
Collinge, Flemister's husband, hopes she will be remembered for the work she did in both agencies and for the respect she's earned from the agents who came after her, even if they're just learning about her now.
That, he adds, "says to me that she made an impact once rediscovered and is likely to make a continuing impact in Secret Service culture."
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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transcript
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| n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书 | |
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juggling
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| n. 欺骗, 杂耍(=jugglery) adj. 欺骗的, 欺诈的 动词juggle的现在分词 | |
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accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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obituary
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| n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的 | |
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stint
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| v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事 | |
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relegated
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| v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 )；使降职；转移；把…归类 | |
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barrage
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| n.火力网，弹幕 | |
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racist
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| n.种族主义者，种族主义分子 | |
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slurs
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| 含糊的发音( slur的名词复数 )； 玷污； 连奏线； 连唱线 | |
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affidavit
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| n.宣誓书 | |
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lawsuit
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| n.诉讼，控诉 | |
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alleging
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| 断言，宣称，辩解( allege的现在分词 ) | |
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multinational
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| adj.多国的，多种国籍的；n.多国籍公司，跨国公司 | |
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consular
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| a.领事的 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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counterfeit
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| vt.伪造，仿造；adj.伪造的，假冒的 | |
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treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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supervisors
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| n.监督者，管理者( supervisor的名词复数 ) | |
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prestigious
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| adj.有威望的，有声望的，受尊敬的 | |
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lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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gorilla
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| n.大猩猩，暴徒，打手 | |
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squads
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| n.（军队中的）班( squad的名词复数 )；（暗杀）小组；体育运动的运动（代表）队；（对付某类犯罪活动的）警察队伍 | |
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epithets
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| n.（表示性质、特征等的）词语( epithet的名词复数 ) | |
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persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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racism
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| n.民族主义；种族歧视(意识) | |
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initially
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| adv.最初，开始 | |
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legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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workforce
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| n.劳动大军，劳动力 | |
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albeit
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| conj.即使；纵使；虽然 | |
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oversees
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| v.监督，监视( oversee的第三人称单数 ) | |
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incrementally
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| adv.逐渐地 | |
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complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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rigor
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| n.严酷，严格，严厉 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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equitable
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| adj.公平的；公正的 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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forensic
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| adj.法庭的，雄辩的 | |
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specialties
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| n.专门，特性，特别；专业( specialty的名词复数 )；特性；特制品；盖印的契约 | |
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marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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