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Alexis Herman
Alexis Margaret Herman (July 16, 1947 – April 25, 2025) was an American political figure who served as the 23rd United States secretary of labor from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. She was the first Black American to hold the position. She was previously Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.
Herman grew up in Mobile, Alabama. After college, she worked to improve employment opportunities for black laborers and women. She then joined the administration of Jimmy Carter, working as director of the Labor Department's Women's Bureau. She became active in the Democratic party, working in the campaigns of Jesse Jackson and then serving as chief of staff for the Democratic National Committee under Ronald H. Brown. She joined the cabinet of President Bill Clinton in 1997.
Following the defeat of Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, Herman remained active in Democratic politics, in addition to her participation in the private sector, serving on the boards of corporations such as Coca-Cola and Toyota.
Herman was born on July 16, 1947, in Mobile, Alabama, the daughter of politician Alex Herman and schoolteacher Gloria Caponis, and raised in a Catholic household. Her father became Alabama's first black ward leader. She later recounted how members of the white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan, assaulted her father when she was five years old.
When Herman was growing up in Mobile, schools remained racially segregated. Her parents opted to send Alexis to parochial school, including Heart of Mary High School, in part because the teachers included white nuns and priests, and thus would expose her to greater diversity.
As a sophomore, she was suspended from school for questioning the Archdiocese of Mobile's exclusion of black students from religious pageants in which white students participated. Following a week of objection from the parents of Herman's fellow black classmates, she was re-admitted.
After graduating from high school, Herman attended Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin, and Spring Hill College in Mobile. She transferred to Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, where she became an active member of the Gamma Alpha Chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology in 1969.
After college, Herman returned to Mobile to help desegregate their parochial schools, including the school she herself attended. She was then a social worker with Catholic Charities in Pascagoula, Mississippi, where she advocated for the city's shipyard to offer training to unskilled black laborers. After Pascagoula, Herman moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where she worked as a director of the Southern Regional Council's Black Women's Employment Program, a program designed to promote minority women into managerial or technical jobs.
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Alexis Herman
Alexis Margaret Herman (July 16, 1947 – April 25, 2025) was an American political figure who served as the 23rd United States secretary of labor from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. She was the first Black American to hold the position. She was previously Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.
Herman grew up in Mobile, Alabama. After college, she worked to improve employment opportunities for black laborers and women. She then joined the administration of Jimmy Carter, working as director of the Labor Department's Women's Bureau. She became active in the Democratic party, working in the campaigns of Jesse Jackson and then serving as chief of staff for the Democratic National Committee under Ronald H. Brown. She joined the cabinet of President Bill Clinton in 1997.
Following the defeat of Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, Herman remained active in Democratic politics, in addition to her participation in the private sector, serving on the boards of corporations such as Coca-Cola and Toyota.
Herman was born on July 16, 1947, in Mobile, Alabama, the daughter of politician Alex Herman and schoolteacher Gloria Caponis, and raised in a Catholic household. Her father became Alabama's first black ward leader. She later recounted how members of the white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan, assaulted her father when she was five years old.
When Herman was growing up in Mobile, schools remained racially segregated. Her parents opted to send Alexis to parochial school, including Heart of Mary High School, in part because the teachers included white nuns and priests, and thus would expose her to greater diversity.
As a sophomore, she was suspended from school for questioning the Archdiocese of Mobile's exclusion of black students from religious pageants in which white students participated. Following a week of objection from the parents of Herman's fellow black classmates, she was re-admitted.
After graduating from high school, Herman attended Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin, and Spring Hill College in Mobile. She transferred to Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, where she became an active member of the Gamma Alpha Chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology in 1969.
After college, Herman returned to Mobile to help desegregate their parochial schools, including the school she herself attended. She was then a social worker with Catholic Charities in Pascagoula, Mississippi, where she advocated for the city's shipyard to offer training to unskilled black laborers. After Pascagoula, Herman moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where she worked as a director of the Southern Regional Council's Black Women's Employment Program, a program designed to promote minority women into managerial or technical jobs.
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