The short life of Sylvia Elizabeth Mathis, FBI’s first African-American female special agent
At the time Sylvia Elizabeth Mathis set out to become the first black female FBI agent, African-American women were finally getting opportunities in many areas thanks to works by influential black female leaders like Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Dorothy Height.
In the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), women were gradually being integrated into the Bureau’s agent ranks. Statistically, only about 40 of the about 85,000 FBI agents were women.
