Born in 1926, 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.

[2][3][4] As the only African-American family on their block in Bay Ridge,[5] they were subjected to racial discrimination from their neighbors, something she would later point to as a reason for her interest in political activism.

[2][1][3] 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.

[6] 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.

[2][1][3] Active as an organizer with the ILGWU, Hernandez eventually became the Education and Public Relations Director for the union's Pacific coast region.

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 campaign of Alan Cranston.

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 ...

"[13] 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.