Aileen Hernandez (born Clarke; May 23, 1926 – February 13, 2017) was an
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
union organizer, civil rights activist, and women's rights activist. She served as the president of the
National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...
(NOW) between 1970 and 1971, and was the first woman to serve on the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination ...
.
Born in 1926, Hernandez attended
Howard University
Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...
, where her interest in
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
was cemented in an incident where she was told that she had to hail a "black" taxi. After graduating with honors, she became a labor union organizer before helping found NOW. As its second president, she helped organize the
Women's Strike for Equality
The Women's Strike for Equality was a strike which took place in the United States on August 26, 1970. It celebrated the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment, which effectively gave American women the right to vote.Gour ...
and testified in front of a congressional subcommittee on the
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. Proponents assert it would end legal distinctions between men and ...
, but she left the organization out of frustration with what she saw as its racial inequities. Hernandez would go on to co-found several organizations that focused on African-American women, along with teaching at several universities in California. She died in 2017 at the age of 90.
Early life and education
Hernandez was born Aileen Blanche Clarke on May 23, 1926, in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York, to Jamaican immigrants Charles Henry Clarke Sr., an art supply executive, and Ethel Louise Hall, a seamstress.
As the only African-American family on their block in
Bay Ridge
Bay Ridge is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded by Sunset Park to the north, Dyker Heights to the east, the Narrows and the Belt Parkway to the west, and Fort Hamilton Army Base an ...
,
they were subjected to racial discrimination from their neighbors, something she would later point to as a reason for her interest in political activism.
Hernandez was educated at the all-girls
Bay Ridge High School in Brooklyn, graduating as the salutatorian of the class of 1943, and went on to attend
Howard University
Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...
.
At Howard, she first intended to major in education and become a teacher, but her experience of segregation in the capital and climate at the campus induced her to change her plans.
She instead earned a degree in sociology and political science and graduated in 1947
magna cum laude
Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...
, and was a member of
Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and the college's chapter of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...
(NAACP).
Her interest in civil rights had been sustained by an experience she had in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, fresh off the train from New York to start at Howard. When she asked a station attendant for a way to the university, she was told to hail a "black" taxi cab. Unaware of prevailing social conventions in the city, she assumed that this referred to the color of the car. However, "this wasn't the issue," she later said in an interview with
''Makers''. "If you wanted to go to Howard University," a
traditionally African-American university, "no taxi driver who was white was going to take you."
After graduating from Howard, Hernandez traveled to Norway for International Student Exchange program classes at the
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...
.
When she returned to the United States, Hernandez began graduate studies at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
, but left for
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
in 1951 upon learning that the
International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) had an open place in their labor college, which aimed to train new labor leaders.
Activism
Active as an organizer with the ILGWU, Hernandez eventually became the Education and Public Relations Director for the union's Pacific coast region. In 1960, she visited six South American countries under the auspices of the US
State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
, where she gave lectures on the United States. A year later, Hernandez finished a master's degree in government from the
California State University at Los Angeles, shortly before she officially left the union to work on the
comptroller
A comptroller (pronounced either the same as ''controller'' or as ) is a management-level position responsible for supervising the quality of accounting and financial reporting of an organization. A financial comptroller is a senior-level executi ...
campaign of
Alan Cranston. With his victory, she was appointed as the Deputy Chief of the
California Division of Fair Employment Practices. As a result of her work in this position, she was appointed by
Lyndon Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
in 1964 as the only woman on the new
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination ...
.
However, she resigned in 1966 after just eighteen months, having been frustrated at the commission's lack of speed in addressing cases that involved sexual discrimination.
Hernandez helped found the
National Organization for Women
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...
(NOW), and was its second national president from 1970 to 1971, during which time it organized the
Women's Strike for Equality
The Women's Strike for Equality was a strike which took place in the United States on August 26, 1970. It celebrated the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment, which effectively gave American women the right to vote.Gour ...
. One of her goals in this position was to reshape what she called the "embarrassingly elitist and middle-class" image of the NOW, stating that "I'm much more interested in the problems of the mass woman than the professional ... The low-income woman isn't going to run to join NOW, but she's going to relate to our program because she has known for a long time the problems of combining a family with a job."
In spring 1970, she testified in front of a congressional subcommittee on the
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. Proponents assert it would end legal distinctions between men and ...
. After resigning the presidency, she co-founded NOW's Minority Women's Task Force but became frustrated with what she saw as the organization's unwillingness to take on racial inequity, especially within NOW itself. She eventually left NOW in 1979 after white candidates were elected to every officer position for the second straight year.
Between founding NOW and serving as its second president, Hernandez co-founded
Black Women Organized for Political Action Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA) was founded in 1968 in California after branching off from the Bay Area Women for Dellums, a group of 12 politically active women who were involved in fundraising for Ron Dellums run for congressio ...
in 1969. In 1984, Hernandez and
Clara Stanton Jones founded the black women's discussion group Black Women Stirring the Waters in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Other accomplishments of Hernandez's included co-founding the
National Women's Political Caucus
The National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC), or the Caucus, describes itself as a multi-partisan grassroots organization in the United States dedicated to recruiting, training, and supporting women who seek elected and appointed offices at all ...
,
Black Women Organized for Political Action Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA) was founded in 1968 in California after branching off from the Bay Area Women for Dellums, a group of 12 politically active women who were involved in fundraising for Ron Dellums run for congressio ...
, and a publishing company with nine African-American women.
She served as the co-chair of the
National Urban Coalition and on the boards of or advisory committees of the
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
(ACLU), the NAACP, and several other organizations, in addition to teaching within the
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...
system and the
University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco (USF) is a private Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. The university's main campus is located on a setting between the Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park. The main campus is nicknamed "The Hil ...
and founding an eponymous consulting firm.
Personal life
While working as an organizer for the ILGWU in 1957, Aileen Hernandez married Alfonso Hernandez, a garment cutter. They divorced in 1961.
Death
Hernandez died on February 13, 2017, at the age of 90 from complications related to dementia.
The ACLU's deputy director
Dorothy Ehrlich, who had known Hernandez from the 1970s, noted that "Aileen Hernandez’s entire life embodied the movement forward for women and people of color, and her significant role in that history will never be forgotten."
NOW's president
Terry O'Neill wrote: "NOW's commitment to intersectional feminism is a direct legacy of Aileen Hernandez's unshakable belief in diversity and racial justice."
Honors
*In 1989, the Northern California chapter of the ACLU gave Hernandez its civil liberties award for "decades of work for equality and justice."
*In 2005, Hernandez was nominated for a
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemi ...
along with some 1,000 women from 150 nations, so honored for their work in social justice and civil rights.
References
External links
Aileen C. Hernandez papersat the
Sophia Smith Collection
The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College is an internationally recognized repository of manuscripts, photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women's history.
General
One of the largest recognized repositories of manuscripts, a ...
, Smith College Special Collections
Biography at the National Women's History Project€”National Organization for Women
at Howard University—profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hernandez, Aileen
1926 births
2017 deaths
African-American feminists
American feminists
American people of Jamaican descent
American women's rights activists
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission members
Presidents of the National Organization for Women
National Organization for Women people
Activists from New York (state)
People from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
Howard University alumni
California State University, Los Angeles alumni
International Ladies Garment Workers Union leaders
Deaths from dementia in California
20th-century African-American people
21st-century African-American people
20th-century African-American women
21st-century African-American women