Josh Coates Directing Film On First Black Secret Service Agent

EXCLUSIVE: Filmmaker Joshua Coates has secured the rights to the life story of Abraham Bolden, the subject of the 2008 autobiography The Echo of Dealey Plaza. Bolden made history as the first Black U.S. Secret Service agent assigned to the White House Detail, where he guarded President John F. Kennedy, who personally appointed him in 1961. Coates, who wrote the screenplay for The Unseen Shield, will also direct the film, which is currently in pre-production with his producing partner, Fetteroff Colen.

Bolden, a U.S. Secret Service agent stationed in the Chicago office, first met President Kennedy while on assignment in the city. Bolden had played a key role in thwarting an assassination plot in Chicago months before the President was tragically assassinated in Dallas, Texas, later that November. Thanks to Bolden’s investigation, Kennedy had previously canceled a planned trip to Chicago, where he was set to address supporters of his 1960 election campaign.

“For many years,” Coates says, “dark forces have tried to erase the true story of former Secret Service Agent Bolden. After Dallas, Bolden used his personal time off, to travel to Washington D.C. and offer his testimony to the Warren Commission investigating the President’s assassination. Bolden was surprised to be whisked back to Chicago and arrested on fabricated charges of soliciting a bribe. He was acquitted but re-tried and convicted ending up sentenced to six years in prison.”

Coates has also retained Stephen Jaffe, a former Special Assistant to the New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, who famously re-investigated the Kennedy assassination in 1967-1968, to serve as a technical consultant on the film and an executive producer. Jaffe was a producer of the first feature film on the Kennedy assassination, “Executive Action,” starring Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan in 1973. It was written by Academy Award winner, Dalton Trumbo and produced by Edward Lewis.

“Bolden’s story was known to us back then but not directly relevant to what happened in Dallas,” Jaffe says, “however the efforts to silence him were clear proof that there had been several plots to assassinate President Kennedy before Dallas.”

After Bolden’s 1964 conviction and sentencing, a movement started and continued for six decades by people who learned of Bolden’s compelling story and read his book. They joined together to try and clear Bolden’s name. Finally, U.S. President Joseph R. Biden granted Bolden a “Full and Unconditional Pardon” on April 26, 2022.

Coates, who just wrapped the psychological thriller Madonna Non-Grata starring Tamara Taylor, Eric Roberts and Isaac Keys, reports that he hopes to begin pre-production later this year as soon as he and his producing partner, Colen, have cast the lead role of Bolden.