Alexis Margaret Herman (born July 16, 1947) is an American politician who served as the 23rd U.S. Secretary of Labor under President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (Birth name, né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 ...

. Herman was the first African-American to hold the position. Prior to serving as Secretary, she was Assistant to the President and Director of the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, Washington, D.C., NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. preside ...

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 Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

, working in the campaigns of

Jesse Jackson Jesse Louis Jackson ( né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American political activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. senato ...

and then serving as chief of staff for the

Democratic National Committee The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The committee coordinates strategy to support Democratic Party candidates throughout the country for local, state, and national office, as well ...

under Ronald H. Brown. Upon the election of Bill Clinton, she joined his

cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

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 The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...

, serving on the boards of corporations such as Coca-Cola and

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

Early life and education

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 The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

household. Her father became Alabama's first black ward leader. She later recounted how members of the white supremacist group, the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Ca ...

, 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, in part because the teachers included white nuns and priests, and thus would expose her to greater diversity. Herman attended the Heart of Mary High School. As a sophomore, she was suspended for questioning the diocese'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 Madison is the county seat of Dane County, Wisconsin, Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin b ...

, and Spring Hill College in Mobile. She transferred to Xavier University of Louisiana in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Delta Sigma Theta sorority Retrieved December 12, 2007. and graduated with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

Sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...

in 1969.

Career

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 they 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. Later, working at New York based consulting firm RTP, Herman led programs designed to provide apprenticeships for women in nontraditional jobs. At RTP, she met

Ray Marshall Freddie Ray Marshall (born August 22, 1928) is an American economist who is the professor emeritus and Audre and Bernard Rapoport Centennial Chair in Economics and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Early life and education ...

. After

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 19 ...

won the Presidency in 1977, he and his incoming Labor Secretary Marshall asked Herman to be director of the Labor Department's Women's Bureau. At age 29, she was the youngest person to hold the position, which required her to work towards improving business opportunities for women. She worked to encourage corporations to hire more minority women, with companies like Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, and General Motors making increased diversity a priority in their hiring process. In 1981, at the end of the Carter administration, Herman left her job in the Labor Department and founded the consulting firm, A.M. Herman & Associates. Herman and the firm worked with corporations on a variety of marketing and management issues, including how to develop training programs, marketing strategies, and organizational strategies. She managed the convention team for

in his 1984 and 1988 bids for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Her role working for Jackson's campaign led Herman to serve as chief of staff to

Chairman Ronald H. Brown, and later as vice chair of the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

Director of the Office of Public Liaison

After Bill Clinton's victory in the 1992 Presidential election, Herman became deputy director of the Presidential Transition Office. Clinton then appointed her director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, where she was responsible for the administration's relations with

interest groups An interest group or an advocacy group is a body which uses various forms of advocacy in order to influence public opinion and/or policy. Interest group may also refer to: * Learned society * Special interest group, a group of individuals sharin ...

. In that role, Herman repeatedly organized informal dinners to advance White House initiatives or assuage key groups. She earned the support of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Congressional Black Caucus as part of her outreach efforts. Herman also earned the respect of members of the business community as part of her effort to gain support for the Clinton Administration's trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Her time as director also included the death of Commerce Secretary, and Herman's former boss at the Democratic National Committee, Ronald Brown in a plane crash. As director, Herman made arrangements for public and private grieving following the death. The tragedy strengthened Herman's bond with Present Clinton, who like Herman had been close to Brown.

Secretary of Labor

In 1996, President Clinton announced his intention to nominate Herman as Secretary of Labor to replace outgoing Secretary Robert Reich. Labor unions publicly supported the nomination, although they had mostly supported other potential nominees such as

Harris Wofford Harris Llewellyn Wofford Jr. (April 9, 1926 – January 21, 2019) was an American attorney, civil rights activist, and Democratic Party politician who represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate from 1991 to 1995. A noted advocate of nat ...

, Esteban Edward Torres, and Alan Wheat. Herman's Senate confirmation was delayed twice. The first resulted from questions regarding her role in organizing White House coffees Clinton used as fundraisers. The second was because Senate Republicans refused to allow a vote on her nomination, as part of their opposition to a proposed

executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of ...

related to federal construction projects, which Clinton eventually abandoned. With the delays over, the

Senate Labor Committee The United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) generally considers matters relating to these issues. Its jurisdiction also extends beyond these issues to include several more specific areas, as defined by Sena ...

held its hearing on her nomination on March 18, 1997. Then on April 30, 1997, the Senate voted to confirm by a vote of 85–13. Herman was sworn in on May 9, 1997. She became the

first African-American African-Americans are an ethnic group in the United States. The first achievements by African-Americans in diverse fields have historically marked footholds, often leading to more widespread cultural change. The shorthand phrase for this is "br ...

, and the fifth woman, to serve in the position. As Secretary of Labor, Herman oversaw the Department of Labor, which at the time employed 17,000 people and operated on a $39 billion annual budget. The Department of Labor is tasked with enforcing a variety of workplace laws and regulations, including safety issues and anti-discrimination. During Herman's tenure, American unemployment was at its lowest level in decades. She earned praise from her peers for her handling of the 1997 United Parcel Service (UPS) workers strike, the largest strike in the United States in two decades. After the strike began in August, Herman met privately with the Teamsters' president and the UPS chairman to frame the issues. She was an instrumental mediator in the talks, and the strike was settled after 15 days. Herman's role in resolving the strike raised her public profile as she began to pursue her agenda as Secretary. As secretary, Herman supported the 1996 and 1997 raises to the

minimum wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. B ...

, increasing it by $0.90 to $5.15 per hour by September 1997. Herman argued the wage hike increased the buying power of workers. She later opposed a 1999 Republican supported plan to raise the minimum wage over three years, instead supporting a two-year time-table for an increase. Herman also opposed the legislation as it included tax cuts without offsets. Among Herman's responsibilities as secretary was the enforcement of

child labor laws Child labour laws are statutes placing restrictions and regulations on the work of minors. Child labour increased during the Industrial Revolution due to the children's abilities to access smaller spaces and the ability to pay children less wages ...

. During her tenure, the Department of Labor fined toy store chain Toys "R" Us $200,000 for violating laws restricting the type of work that may be done, and the number of hours that may be worked by underage employees. It found more than 300 teenage employees were working more and later hours than permitted, and Toys "R" Us agreed to stop the practices. Herman supported the United States' participation in the International Labor Organization's Child Labor Convention, a treaty designed to protect children under 18 years old from slavery, trafficking, bondage, and other abuses. She also defended the United States' support of a provision to allow for voluntary military service of those under 18 years old, a practice allowed in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands. Opponents, including other nations,

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (s ...

s, and Amnesty International urged tougher provisions; however, Herman contended the focus of the treaty should be on forced labor, not voluntary military service.

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

Janet Reno appointed Independent Council Ralph I. Lancaster Jr., in May 1998, to investigate Herman after businessman Laurent J. Yene alleged she accepted kickbacks while working at the White House. Reno was skeptical of Yene's allegations following a preliminary FBI investigation, but she believed the Independent Council law obligated her to appoint independent council where she could not affirm the claims were without merit. Following a twenty-three month investigation, Independent Council Lancaster concluded that Herman had broken no laws and cleared her of all wrongdoing. She was the fifth Clinton cabinet officer to be investigated by independent counsel, and the fourth cleared of all wrongdoing. The Independent Council investigations of the cabinet members cost $95 million and did not uncover any felonies, leading Congress to allow the Independent Counsel Act to expire in June 1999 without re-authorization. Herman was active in Al Gore's 2000 campaign for president. During the Florida election recount, Herman was part of the team planning a transition to a Gore Administration. ''

ABC News ABC News is the journalism, news division of the American broadcast network American Broadcasting Company, ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other progra ...

'' and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' considered her a likely candidate to remain in Gore's White House if he won. Elaine Chao replaced her as Secretary of Labor in the George W. Bush administration.

Post-government

Herman served as co-chair of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's transition team during the 2004 presidential election. In 2005,

Howard Dean Howard Brush Dean III (born November 17, 1948) is an American physician, author, lobbyist, and retired politician who served as the 79th governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003 and chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2005 to 200 ...

, serving as

Chairman, appointed Herman and lawyer James Roosevelt, Jr. co-chairs of its Rules and Bylaws Committee. The position put Herman and Roosevelt at the center of a dispute between the campaigns of democratic primary candidates

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

and

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States senat ...

over whether to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida at the

2008 Democratic National Convention The 2008 Democratic National Convention was a quadrennial presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party where it adopted its national platform and officially nominated its candidates for president and vice president. The conve ...

. Herman endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic Party Presidential primaries and served as Deputy Parliamentarian at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. From 2001 to 2006, Herman was chairwoman of

The Coca-Cola Company The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation founded in 1892, best known as the producer of Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Company also manufactures, sells, and markets other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrup ...

's Human Resources Task Force. The following year, Coca-Cola made her a director. Herman served on

's Diversity Advisory Board. In 2006, the company appointed her to head a special task force to ensure the company's compliance with anti-discrimination standards following the resignation of Toyota North America's CEO, after being named the defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit. Herman served on the boards of other major companies, including

Cummins Cummins Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and distributes engines, filtration, and power generation products. Cummins also services engines and related equipment, including fuel systems, controls, air ...

MGM Resorts International MGM Resorts International is an American global hospitality and entertainment company operating destination resorts in Las Vegas, Massachusetts, Detroit, Mississippi, Maryland, and New Jersey, including Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, and ...

, Entergy, Sodexo, and is the chairman and CEO of New Ventures, Inc. In 2010, Herman was appointed to the board of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, a charitable organization founded by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to aid

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

following a magnitude 7.0 M_w earthquake in January of that year. Herman has also been involved with civic groups including the

National Urban League The National Urban League, formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan historic civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of economic and social justice for African Am ...

and the National Epilepsy Foundation. She has been awarded more than 20 honorary doctorate degrees from academic institutions.

Personal life

Herman was Queen of Carnival for the Mobile Area Mardi Gras Association in 1974. Her father had served as King of Carnival in his youth. Herman married physician Charles Franklin Jr. in February 2000 at the

Washington National Cathedral The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington, commonly known as Washington National Cathedral, is an American cathedral of the Episcopal Church. The cathedral is located in Washington, D.C., the ca ...

. Franklin had three children from previous marriages. He died in 2014 following an extended illness.

References

External links

U.S. Department of Labor Biography

Private Attorney Chosen To Investigate Alexis Herman, CNN, AllPolitics, May 26, 1998

Clinton questioned in Alexis Herman investigation, CNN, September 8, 1999

Congressional Record—Senate S3409, April 22, 1997

* , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Herman, Alexis 1947 births 20th-century American women politicians 20th-century American politicians 21st-century American women African-American Catholics African-American members of the Cabinet of the United States African-American women in politics Alabama Democrats American social workers Clinton administration cabinet members Delta Sigma Theta members Directors of The Coca-Cola Company Living people Politicians from Mobile, Alabama Social workers United States Secretaries of Labor Women in Alabama politics Women members of the Cabinet of the United States Xavier University of Louisiana alumni