WASHINGTON — Labor leaders, politicians and civil rights activists are mourning the dying of Alexis Herman, the primary Black U.S. Secretary of Labor and a fierce advocate for office equality.
She died on Friday on the age of 77.
Herman broke many obstacles in her prolific profession, and the outpouring of reward since her dying suggests how she empowered others to do the identical.
“In every effort, she lifted people with her unfailing optimism and energy,” former President Invoice Clinton mentioned. “We will miss her very much.”
Inside months after becoming a member of Clinton’s Cupboard, Herman mediated the negotiations between United Parcel Service leaders and 185,000 hanging postal staff that ended the most important U.S. strike in a decade.
The deal was considered one of some ways by which Herman superior the pursuits of “those who had been shut out of opportunity for decades” the AFL-CIO mentioned in a press release following her dying on Friday.
Herman additionally promoted initiatives that introduced the U.S. unemployment price to three-decade low, oversaw two raises to the minimal wage and helped go the Workforce Funding Act of 1998, which expanded workforce coaching for low-income People throughout the nation.
“As a leader in business, government, and her community, she was a trailblazer who dedicated her life to strengthening America’s workforce and creating better lives for hardworking families,” present U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer mentioned.
Herman was a pioneer lengthy earlier than her work within the Clinton administration.
She was simply 29 when President Jimmy Carter appointed her to guide the Girls’s Bureau on the Division of Labor in 1977, making her the youngest particular person to ever maintain the place.
Herman labored on political campaigns for outstanding Black politicians all through the Nineteen Eighties, together with the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s two presidential bids, and have become the primary Black lady to carry the place of CEO of the Democratic Nationwide Conference in 1992.
She additionally based her personal consulting agency to advance variety in company America, working with Proctor & Gamble, AT&T and different companies.
“Her legacy will continue to guide us in our ongoing efforts to build a more just and inclusive society,” mentioned Virginia Rep. Robert Scott, who described Herman as a buddy.
Born in 1947 in segregated Cell, Ala., Herman witnessed firsthand the racial violence that Black individuals have been subjected to throughout the South. She as soon as watched her mom “collapse” from exhaustion within the entrance seat of a public bus after an extended day of labor as a faculty instructor. When her mom refused to maneuver to the again, the motive force bodily pressured Herman and her mom off.
“She held her head high and said to me, ‘Come on Alexis, we will just keep walking.’ She just kept moving,” Herman wrote in “My Mother’s Daughter,” an anthology of essays revealed in 2024. “At crucial instances all through my life, that life lesson has been my particular mantra, ‘keep it moving.’
Herman mentioned her childhood dwelling was typically full of college students that her mom tutored. She credited her mom with modeling “a ‘can do’ attitude and service, no matter the odds.”
Earlier than turning into a strong voice for girls and minorities in Washington D.C., Herman held all kinds of jobs to assist herself and her mom. She was a phone operator, home cleaner, camp counselor, instructor’s aide, social employee and adoption counselor, in keeping with an interview with The New York Occasions in 2000. And he or she mentioned she “never had a bad job.”
“My work has always been a source of fulfillment,” Herman mentioned on the time.
Herman married Dr. Charles Franklin in 2000, a Black doctor well-known for his advocacy on behalf of his alma mater, Howard College. He died in 2014.
