About 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. 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. Active as an organizer with the ILGWU, Hernandez eventually became the Education and Public Relations Director for the union's Pacific coast region.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.