[1] Adrienne Elizabeth McNeil was born on July 22, 1869, in Augusta, Georgia to the unwed couple Martha Fleming and George Stevens.

[3] She is described by historian Rebecca Burns as "short and lithe with a lively manner and sophisticated bearing" "[w]ith her creamy skin, wavy brown hair, and dark eyes, Adrienne moved easily [...] and kept her racial background a secret".

[4] She would continue her studies there over the course of several summers, and completed the program in 1904, making her professional stage debut (under the name Anne Du Bignon) in a one-woman show of Antony and Cleopatra at Steinert Hall.

[3] Her performance was reviewed positively, and critic Henry Clapp of The Boston Herald even introduced her to producer David Belasco, who wrote that she would make a "fine character actress.

[8][7][3] Prior to beginning her teaching tenure at Atlanta University in the fall of 1895, Herndon was celebrated in a week-long bazaar in her hometown of Savannah, which included a musical performance.

[3] After the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906, in which her husband's barbershop was vandalized and two of his employees killed, Herndon and her family left Georgia and lived briefly in Philadelphia before moving to New York City in 1907.

[9] Teaching physical exercises, voice drills, and public speaking, she transformed the practice of elocution, then a required component of the Atlanta curriculum.

[3] Playwright Errol Hill has described her as a pioneer of teaching and directing Shakespeare, as she introduced the Bard's classic works to the South well before other historically black colleges did.

[12][6] The Tuesday morning after the rioting, Herndon [note 1] along with Reverend Henry H. Proctor met with the city mayor and chief of police to discuss safety for victims and justice for the rioters.

[12] Beginning in 1905 Herndon also sat on the board of the Gate City Free Kindergarten Association, a social work group focused on the lack of educational services for young black children that served as the predecessor of Lugenia Burns Hope's Neighborhood Union.

[15] Herndon was heavily involved in its planning, working closely with a team of black craftsmen on a Beaux Arts design that included fifteen rooms and a personalized mural of Alonzo's life.