Abraham Bolden

Who is Abraham Bolden?

Abraham Bolden is an American former United States Secret Service agent - the first African-American Secret Service agent assigned to the Presidential Protective Division, appointed by John F. Kennedy in 1961. Bolden was fired from the Secret Service after he was charged in 1964 with accepting a bribe in relation to a counterfeiting case he was involved with. He was ultimately sentenced to six years in prison, despite one of the counterfeiters admitting at his own trial that he had perjured himself at Bolden's at the request of the prosecutor. The charges came shortly after Bolden attempted to inform the Warren Commission of Secret Service failings relating to the Assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, including a failure to adequately follow up a prior assassination attempt earlier that month. Bolden, who worked in the automotive industry after his release, testified to the Select Committee on Assassinations of the US House of Representatives in 1978 and published his memoirs in 2008.