Nashville leaders, community remember trailblazer Edith Taylor Langster

NASHVILLE, TN — One of the city’s groundbreaking figures in Nashville history, Edith Taylor Langster, passed away June 30. She was 75.Services for Langster were held July 6 at St. Ann Catholic Church. Several dignitaries and community leaders gathered to honor her life in which she dedicated more than two decades to public service. She was lauded as a trailblazer breaking the glass ceiling to become Nashville’s first ever female and Black female patrol officer in the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.“Edith Taylor Langster, simply put, was a Nashville public service trailblazer. Her work as our city’s first female patrol officer in 1974 helped set a career standard for other women to follow, even to this day,” said MNPD Chief of Police John Drake.Langster began as a dispatcher with MNPD in 1972 at a time when women officers were confined to administrative “desk” positions. Soon after the state of Tennessee ratified the Equal Rights Amendment by passing Joint Resolution 371 prohibiting sexual discrimination, she quickly challenged the status quo and enrolled in Metro’s Police Training Academy graduating within six months. That achievement elevated her as the first woman and first Black woman to the Patrol Division. She would later move on...