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.
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 household.
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. 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.
Career
After college, Herman returned to Mobile to help desegregate their parochial schools, including the school she herself attended. She worked to encourage corporations to hire more minority women, with companies like Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, 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. She managed the convention team for Jesse Jackson 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 Democratic National Committee Chairman Ronald H. Brown, and later as vice chair of the 1992 Democratic National Convention. 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. 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. With the delays over, the Senate Labor Committee 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.
As Secretary of Labor, Herman oversaw the U.S. 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. Herman argued the wage hike increased the buying power of workers.
Among Herman's responsibilities as secretary was the enforcement of child labor laws. It found more than 300 teenage employees were working more and later hours than permitted, and Toys "R" Us agreed to stop the practices. 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.
Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Independent Counsel 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 law obligated her to appoint independent counsel where she could not affirm the claims were without merit. During the Florida election recount, Herman was part of the team planning a transition to a Gore Administration. ABC News and The New York Times considered her a likely candidate to remain in Gore's White House if he won. In 2005, Howard Dean, serving as Democratic National Committee 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 and Hillary Clinton over whether to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
From 2001 to 2006, Herman was chairwoman of The Coca-Cola Company's Human Resources Task Force. The following year, Coca-Cola made her a director. Herman served on Toyota'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, MGM Resorts International, Entergy, Sodexo, and was 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 following a magnitude 7.0 M<sub>w</sub> earthquake in January of that year. Herman was also involved with civic groups including the National Urban League and the National Epilepsy Foundation.
Honors
Herman was awarded more than 30 honorary doctorate degrees
In 1994, she received an honorary degree from her alma mater, Xavier University, and served as the commencement speaker. Her father had served as King of Carnival in his youth. Franklin had three children from previous marriages. He died in 2014 following an extended illness.
Herman died in Washington, D.C. on April 25, 2025, at the age of 77.
Xavier University established The Alexis Herman ’69 Memorial Fund to honor her legacy.