Aileen Hernandez

Aileen Hernandez (née Clarke; May 23, 1926 – February 13, 2017) was an African-American union organizer, civil rights activist, and women's rights activist. She served as the president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) between 1970 and 1971, and was the first woman to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Hernandez attended Howard University, where her interest in civil rights 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 and testified in front of a congressional subcommittee on the Equal Rights Amendment, 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, 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, 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. 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.