![]() ![]() "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 yearsįlemister was born in Frankfurt to a U.S. "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. "There was always reserve and care in how she presented herself professionally."īut 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. "She learned very, very early on that she had to carry herself very carefully as a professional Black woman," he said. "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.įlemister 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.Īnd she experienced discrimination and tokenization throughout her time at the agency, including being relegated 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 barrage of racist comments and slurs, often aimed at her directly.įlemister stayed with the agency because she wanted to be a "trailblazer for other African-American women," as she wrote in an affidavit filed in support of a 2000 class-action lawsuit alleging racial discrimination within the Secret Service (which settled for $24 million in 2017).Ĭollinge, himself a retired CIA officer, described Flemister as a "classic New Englander" - very introverted and reserved, especially when it came to her career. 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.įlemister's death - of Alzheimer's complications and publicized in a Washington Post obituary - has renewed attention to her trailblazing stint at the Secret Service in the 1970s. ![]() "The level of accomplishments that my wife managed. The Two-Way Secret Service, Agents Settle Over Racial Discrimination Allegations
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