Remembering Alexis Herman, the first Black US Secretary of Labor

WASHINGTON (AP) — Labor leaders, politicians and civil rights activists are mourning the death of Alexis Herman, the first Black U.S. Secretary of Labor and a fierce advocate for workplace equality.

She died on Friday at the age of 77.

Herman broke many barriers in her prolific career, and the outpouring of praise since her death suggests how she empowered others to do the same.

“In every effort, she lifted people with her unfailing optimism and energy," said former President Bill Clinton. "We will miss her very much.”

Within months after joining Clinton's Cabinet, Herman mediated the negotiations between United Parcel Service leaders and 185,000 striking postal workers that ended the largest U.S. strike in a decade.

The deal was one of many ways in which Herman advanced the interests of “those who had been shut out of opportunity for decades” the AFL-CIO said in a statement following her death on Friday.

Herman also promoted initiatives that brought the U.S. unemployment rate to three-decade low, oversaw two raises to the minimum wage and helped pass the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, which expanded workforce training for low-income Americans across the country.

"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," current U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer said.

Herman was a pioneer long before her work in the Clinton administration.

She was just 29 when President Jimmy Carter appointed her to lead the Women’s Bureau at the Department of Labor in 1977, making her the youngest person to ever hold the position.

Herman worked on political campaigns for prominent Black politicians throughout the 1980s, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s two presidential bids, and became the first Black woman to hold the position of CEO of the Democratic National Convention in 1992.

She also founded her own consulting firm to advance diversity in corporate America, working with Proctor & Gamble, AT&T and other corporations.

“Her legacy will continue to guide us in our ongoing efforts to build a more just and inclusive society,” said Virginia Rep. Robert Scott, who described Herman as a friend.

Born in 1947 in segregated Mobile, Alabama, Herman witnessed firsthand the racial violence that Black people were subjected to across the South. She once watched her mother “collapse” from exhaustion in the front seat of a public bus after a long day of work as a school teacher. When her mother refused to move to the back, the driver physically forced Herman and her mother 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 published in 2024. “At critical times throughout my life, that life lesson has been my special mantra, ‘keep it moving.’

Herman said her childhood home was often filled with students that her mother tutored. She credited her mother with modeling “a ‘can do’ attitude and service, no matter the odds."

Before becoming a powerful voice for women and minorities in Washington D.C., Herman held a wide variety of jobs to support herself and her mother. She was a telephone operator, house cleaner, camp counselor, teacher’s aide, social worker and adoption counselor, according to an interview with The New York Times in 2000. And she said she “never had a bad job."

“My work has always been a source of fulfillment," Herman said at the time.

Herman married Dr. Charles Franklin in 2000, a Black physician well known for his advocacy on behalf of his alma mater, Howard University. He died in 2014.

Labor Secretary Alexis Herman meets reporters at the Labor Department in Washington Tuesday, July 28, 1998, to discuss General Motors Corporation's tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers. The agreement would end an almost two-month strike that virtually shut down GM's North American production costing the number one automaker $2.2 billion. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

FILE-- Alexis Herman, testifies on Capitol Hill in this March 18, 1997 file photo. (AP Photo/Joe Marquette, file)

FILE - Alexis Herman, U.S. Secretary of Labor, addresses the 87th Annual International Labor Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, June 15, 1999. (AP Photo/Donald Stampfli, file)

FILE - Vice President Gore applauds Alexis Herman while Herman blows a kiss to the audience after a reenactment of her swearing in as Secretary of Labor, May 9, 1997, in Washington. (AP Photo/Reggie Pearman, file)

FILE - Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton talks with former Labor Secretary Alexis Herman prior to addressing the 51st Delta Sigma Theta National Convention in Washington, July 16, 2013. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, file)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday fired off another warning to the government of Cuba as the close ally of Venezuela braces for potential widespread unrest after Nicolás Maduro was deposed as Venezuela's leader.

Cuba, a major beneficiary of Venezuelan oil, has now been cut off from those shipments as U.S. forces continue to seize tankers in an effort to control the production, refining and global distribution of the country's oil products.

Trump said on social media that Cuba long lived off Venezuelan oil and money and had offered security in return, “BUT NOT ANYMORE!”

“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA - ZERO!” Trump said in the post as he spent the weekend at his home in southern Florida. “I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” He did not explain what kind of deal.

The Cuban government said 32 of its military personnel were killed during the American operation last weekend that captured Maduro. The personnel from Cuba’s two main security agencies were in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, as part of an agreement between Cuba and Venezuela.

“Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years,” Trump said Sunday. “Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the World (by far!), to protect them, and protect them we will.”

Trump also responded to another account’s social media post predicting that his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, will be president of Cuba: “Sounds good to me!” Trump said.

Trump and top administration officials have taken an increasingly aggressive tone toward Cuba, which had been kept economically afloat by Venezuela. Long before Maduro's capture, severe blackouts were sidelining life in Cuba, where people endured long lines at gas stations and supermarkets amid the island’s worst economic crisis in decades.

Trump has said previously that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, would slide further with the ouster of Maduro.

“It’s going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It’s going down for the count.”

A person watches the oil tanker Ocean Mariner, Monrovia, arrive to the bay in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

President Donald Trump attends a meeting with oil executives in the East Room of the White House, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)