Alexis M. Herman
cabinet official; activist; entrepreneur; social worker
Personal Information
Born Alexis Margaret Herman, July 16, 1947, in Mobile, AL; daughter of Alex and Gloria (Caponis) Herman; married Dr. Charles Franklin, Jr. February, 2001.
Education: Attended Edgewood College, 1965-67, and Spring Hill College, 1967; Xavier University, B.A., 1969; did graduate work at the University of South Alabama, 1970-72.
Politics: Democrat.
Memberships: National Commission on Working Women; founding member, National Consumer Cooperative Bank; board member, Adams National Bank; National Council of Negro Women; National Democratic Institute; District of Columbia Economic Development Finance Corporation, board member. Affiliated with the United States Catholic Bishops Conference, United States Conference on Social Justice, the World Peace Commission, the Campaign for Human Development, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
Career
Interfaith, Mobile, AL, community worker, c.1969; Catholic Social Services, Mobile, social worker, 1969-72; Recruitment Training Program, Pascagoula, MS, outreach worker, 1971-72; Black Women Employment Program South Regional Council, director, 1972-74; Department of Labor Recruitment Training Program, consulting supervisor, 1973-74; Minority Women Employment Program, Atlanta, GA, director, 1974-77; Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, director, 1977-81; A. M. Herman & Associates, president and CEO, 1981-- ; Democratic National Committee, chief of staff, 1989-91, deputy chair, 1991-93; 1992 Democratic National Convention Committee, chief executive officer, 1991-92; Clinton-Gore Presidential Transition Office, Washington, DC, deputy director, 1992-93; White House Office of Public Liaison, director, and assistant to the President of the United States, 1993-97; appointed Secretary of Labor, January 1997; spear-headed Coca Cola task force, 2001. Also served as White House representative to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, late 1970s; member of presidential task force to establish a federally-sponsored Women's Business Ownership Initiative.
Life's Work
When Alexis M. Herman was named Labor Secretary by President Bill Clinton in his second administration in January of 1997, she became the first African American to hold that cabinet post. She brought with her a long history of public service--including a stint in that very department during the Carter Administration--as well as experience in Democratic politics at the highest level. Before serving as Clinton's director of the Office of Public Liaison during his first administration, she was chief executive officer in charge of the Democrats' national convention, the political event that helped usher in a new Democratic era in Washington, DC.
Alexis Margaret Herman was born July 16, 1947, in Mobile, Alabama. Political ambition was not an unfamiliar aspiration in the household of her youth--her father, Alex, sued the Democratic Party in an effort to allow blacks to vote and later became the state's first black wardsman. During the 1960s, Herman attended college in Madison, Wisconsin, transferred to Spring Hill College in Mobile, and received her degree from New Orleans's Xavier University. Her first job out of college was with Interfaith, a Mobile organization, as a community worker; she later became a social worker for Catholic Social Services, also in Mobile. One of her first significant tasks during this time was helping to desegregate her former high school, Heart of Mary.
In the early 1970s, Herman worked for the Recruitment and Training Program in Pascagoula, Mississippi. In this capacity she learned much about the invisible walls set up to keep women and minorities from economic opportunity when she attempted to obtain membership for a young African American woman in a shipyard labor union. "I was not prepared for not just the overt forms, but the institutional barriers, the real stereotypes about what you can do as a woman, what you can do as a black woman," she recalled in a 1994 New York Times interview with Gwen Ifill. "I understood what double jeopardy really was. I had never thought about what it was to be black and female until that point."
Herman's work in Mississippi led to her hiring at the Minority Women Employment Program (MWEP), based in Atlanta, Georgia. The MWEP was a government-funded affirmative action program under the direction of the Southern Regional Council. The aim of MWEP was to place minority women into white-collar jobs by adapting an existing program that had increased the number of African Americans in construction trades. Many of the jobs were in the private sector, and such efforts were considered rather radical during the era. Herman's efforts on behalf of the MWEP led to its implementation as a national program in 1974 and to her selection as its director.
Herman's stint at the head of the national MWEP program brought her to the attention of President Jimmy Carter. Elected to office in 1976, Carter's Democratic administration ushered in a new era in Washington politics in 1977, including the appointment of numerous women and minorities to government posts. Herman was chosen to serve as director of the Women's Bureau of Labor Department, making her--at 29-years of age--its youngest director ever and the highest-ranked African American in the Labor Department. Her role was to oversee women's issues in both the public and private work sector, which allowed her access to the president as an advisor on such matters. She also served as the White House representative to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development during the Carter Administration.
Herman held these posts until 1981. During the subsequent Reagan years, Herman remained in Washington, though she joined the private sector. She founded A. M. Herman and Associates, a marketing and management company, but remained active in Democratic politics. In 1989, Ron Brown, then chair of the Democratic National Committee, picked Herman as chief of staff for the party's national ruling organization; she became deputy chair in 1991. That same year, she became chief executive officer of the upcoming 1992 Democratic National Convention Committee, the political event in which presidential candidates are formally nominated by their party. In this capacity she headed the July event held at Madison Square Garden in New York City, memorable for the delegates' overwhelming endorsement of Clinton as candidate (3,372 votes) over other Democratic hopefuls, Jerry Brown (596) and Paul Tsongas (209).
When Clinton was elected president in November of 1992, Herman was named deputy director of the Clinton-Gore Presidential Transition Office. This organization was responsible for directing a graceful shift of power from a Republican-controlled government to the first Democratic one in twelve years. During this transition period Clinton named Herman director of the Office of Public Liaison, a post under the auspices of the White House staff; it also made her one of five assistants to the president.
The first years of the Clinton Administration, however, were difficult ones. One of Herman's first official duties was to oversee the Senate confirmation hearings of Dr. Joycelyn Elders as Surgeon General, an appointment accompanied by controversy from the start because of Dr. Elders's progressive views. Herman provided moral support and coaching for Elders prior to the unpleasant hearings, and Elders eventually won Senate confirmation. In 1993, the New York Times, the nation's most respected newspaper, erroneously reported that Herman was one of three gay White House staff members; a retraction was printed the following day.
Unnecessary speculation about the sexual orientation of White House officials was only one of the problems faced by the first Clinton Administration, but Herman remained unflappable. As the New York Times's Ifill explained, "In a White House fraught with disorganization and tension, Ms. Herman's shop--16 people who stroke egos, perform emergency policy triage and provide the President with a link to his public--has emerged as one of the most stable." Several other top White House staff assistants--Leon Panetta, David Gergen, and Thomas McLarty III--either resigned or changed jobs within the department in its first two years. Herman was instrumental in helping smooth other rough spots. As the New York Times reported, several prominent Democrats initially felt that the Clinton team--newcomers to Washington--snubbed them. To remedy this situation, Herman held "confabs"--off-the-record meetings--each Wednesday evening in which she exchanged information and gossip with the insulted politicians. These confabs placed them closer to the President's orbit.
In her official capacity, however, Herman's Public Liaison director duties essentially entailed supervising the interaction between Clinton and the public. For instance, when he needed to drum up support for his crime bill in 1994, he spoke before a national convention of law-enforcement personnel, an opportunity that Herman recognized out of the dozens of requests for the President's time that crossed her desk every day. She has also served as a link between Clinton and black voters and organizations, most importantly the Congressional Black Caucus. Savvy interpersonal skills and a tactful approach are Herman's strong points. As one Administration official told Ifill in the New York Times, "She knows how to play. She's the queen of schmooze." A former Labor Department colleague, Ernest Green, also spoke favorably of Herman to Ifill: "Alexis is talented, smart, aggressive, and she doesn't get herself associated with losers. Now that seems to me to be a strategy for success."
In January of 1997 President Clinton, having won re-election to a second term, appointed Herman as Secretary of Labor. She was the first African American to hold the post. During the press conference to announce the appointment, Clinton was quoted in Jet praising Herman as "a successful businesswoman and a leader in efforts to bring minorities into the economic mainstream. And for the past four years . . . she has been my eyes and ears, working to connect the American people." Herman, in turn, pledged to promote a "growing, innovative and entrepreneurial economy" in an effort to raise the standard of living for America's working majority.
In 1998, an investigation into charges that Herman was taking kickbacks and illegal funding began. By 2000, she was cleared of the charges and the inquiry ended, but not without sullying Herman's good name. In 2001, she headed the Coca Cola task force to watch employment practices after a racial discrimination lawsuit.
Awards
Dorothy I. Height Award, Recruitment and Training Program; named Outstanding Young Person of Atlanta, 1974; First Woman Award, Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs of Atlanta, 1976; named one of the District of Columbia's Outstanding Young Woman of the Year; Woman of the Year, National Black Women's Political Leadership Caucus, 1977; Award of Excellence, Non-Partisan Voter's League, 1977; named Outstanding Young Woman of America, 1978; Scroll of Distinction, National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs; Award for Affirmative Action in the Workplace, Coalition of Labor Union Women, 1978; Equal Opportunity Award, Mexican-American Opportunity Foundation, 1978; named one of Ebony's "50 Future Leaders" in 1979; named Outstanding Young Woman of the Future by Ladies Home Journal, 1980; Central State University, honorary doctorate; Lesley College, honorary doctorate.
Further Reading
Books
- Notable Black American Women: Book II, Gale Research, Jessie Carney Smith, Editor, 1996, pp. 287-289.
- Black Enterprise, February 1994, p. 26.
- Cincinnati Post (Cincinnati, Ohio), April 7, 2000, p. 22A.
- Financial Times, March 16, 2001, P. 7.
- Fresno Bee (Frenso, California), February 13, 2002, p. A2.
- Houston Chronicle (Houston, Texas), April 6, 2000, p. 1.
- Jet, July 26, 1993, p. 4; January 13, 1997, pp. 4-6.
- New York Times, August 30, 1994, p. A16.
- St. Louis Dispatch (Missouri), May 12, 1998, p. A1.
- Additional information for this profile was provided by White House publicity materials, 1997.
— Carol Brennan
