Alexis Herman, a source of the Democratic Party that grew under the segregation in Alabama and became the first Secretary of Black Labor, a position in which he helped establish a paralyzing strike by the workers of the United package service, died Friday in Washington. She was 77 years old.
His death, after a letter disease, was announced by Re -Family. The announcement did not say what part of Washington died.
President Bill Clinton was familiar with Mrs. Herman when she nominated her as Labor Secretary in her second term. She had been the executive director of the 1992 National Democratic Convention; Deputy Director of Mr. Clinton’s transition team after winning the 1992 presidential elections; and the Public Link Director of the White House during his first term.
When he nominated her for the Secretary of Labor, President Clinton referred to his work in the Public Link Office, a support base organizer for administration policies. “She has been my eyes and ears,” he said, “working to connect the American people, business and work, people and communities with their government.”
Mrs. Herman spent three months to direct the Labor Department when 185,000 unionized UPS workers are strike in early August 1997, the packages of packages are taken throughout the country.
Mrs. Herman spent five days going from room to room at a Washington hotel to persuade the leaders of the UPS and the Teamsters union to concentrate on the problems.
“I was trying to be subtle,” he told the program “Today” after the 15 -day strike ended. “I was trying to be very direct. I moved with them.”
Joseph McCartin, Labor Historian at the University of Georgetown, said that the role of Mrs. Herman in the resolution of the strike helped improve tensions between the Clinton administration and the work movement on topics such as the impact of the Free Trade Agreement of North America.
Mrs. Herman also played a role in efforts to reduce exploitation workshops by creating a code of conduct and a monitoring system for US companies that make clothes abroad. She supported two increases in the minimum wage and helped obtain the passage of the 1998 workforce investment law, a review of job training programs.
Duration his mandate, Inemployent fell to a minimum of 30 years.
Robert Reich, predecessor of Mrs. Herman as Secretary of Labor, said in a statement: “I saw Alexis champion efforts to increase diversity in government and workplace, and encourage young people to get involved in politics.”
Alexis Margaret Herman was born on July 16, 1947 in Mobile, Ala. His mother, Gloria Broadus caponis, was a school teacher. His father, Alex Herman, owned an insurance company. Hey also owned the white socks of Chattanooga, a team of black lesches, and signed the future pitcher of the Fame Satchel Paige Hall with his first professional contract.
Mr. Herman was also a civil rights activist, a democratic politician and a neighborhood leader in Mobile.
After Mrs. Herman and her father visited a minister on Christmas Eve when she was 5 years old, her car was expelled from a dirt road for one led by members of the Ku Klux Klan. She recalled that her father handed her the little silver gun that he brought for protection while traveling to community meetings.
“He told me:” If someone opens this, I want this trigger to squeeze, “Chicago Tribune told Chicago in 1997.
He locked him behind him and faced the Klansmen, who beat him.
A year later, Mrs. Herman walked to her house with her mother, that she was so tired that she decided that they would take a bus for the rest of the road. When they approached, his mother collapsed from exhaustion in the front seat. The bus driver told him to move to the back of the bus.
But she could not, or would not, and the driver snatched her from the seat, opened and pushed her into the street.
“With the tears in the eyes, the broken socks and fighting to kneel, she inherited her head high and said:” Come on, Alexis, we will continue walking, “Sra. Herman wrote in an essay included in” My Mother’s Daughter “(2024), a antecana edited by Paulette Norvel Lewis.
Mrs. Herman was educated in parish schools to avoid having to attend the segregates.
After graduating from Xavier College of Louisiana in 1969 with a degree in Sociology, Mrs. Herman was hired as a social worker at Catholic Charitions in Mobile. In that work, he persuaded the city shipyard in the nearby Pascagoula, Miss., To give the holders of apprentices the young black workers.
He moved to Atlanta to direct a program for the South Regional Council that pressed corporations to hire black women for white collar work.
The program caught the attention of the new Carter administration; In 1977, she was appointed director of the Women’s Office of Labor Departments, which represses the needs of working women.
After President Jimmy Carter lost his commitment to re -election in 1980, Mrs. Herman formed a consulting firm with Ernest Green, one of the nine black students who disaggregated Little Rock High School in 1957, which advised companies about marketing and minority hiring problems. He soon begged to meet with influential political figures, including Andrew Young, the leader of civil rights and former mayor of Atlanta; The Reverend Jesse Jackson, whose presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988 joined; and Ronald H. Brown, who in 1989 became president of the National Democratic Committee. Mrs. Herman became her deputy.
When Mrs. Herman was nominated for the Secretary of Labor, her counterture was a hero for months, partly by an investigation of the Senate about whether she had used the public link office to help the influential Democratic donors to obtain access to President Clinton to defend special interests. Some Republicans also expressed statements that she had guided federal contracts and subsidies to buyers near the mandate of President Carter.
It was authorized and confirmed by the Senate, from 85 to 13.
In 2000, after an investigation of almost two years, an independent prosecutor authorized her of accusations of a former commercial partner that she had accepted bribes in the award of federal contracts when it was the public link office.
President Clinton insisted on a statement at the time that Mrs. Herman had not done anything wrong and was “proud to call her my friend.”
His marriage to Dr. Charles L. Franklin Jr. ended with his death in 2014. His stepdaughter, Charles J. Franklin, Michele Franklin and Sherry Smith, and a cousin, Bernard Broadus survived.
After serving in the Administration of Clinton, Mrs. Herman formed a consulting company, new companies and served in the Coca-Cola, Entergy and other companies. She was also co-president of the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina, and joined the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund Board after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
She was president of Dorothy I. Height Education Fund, named for civil rights and women who was her mentor.
In a statement, Marc Moral, president of the Urban National League, praised Mrs. Herman, who was the senior vice president of the Board of Organizations. His “commitment to empower people disregarded already marginalized communities,” he said, “he was fierce, genuine and unwavering.”