The daughter of politician Alex Herman and schoolteacher Gloria Caponis, Alexis grew up a Catholic home in Mobile and earned her high school diploma in 1965 from the Heart of Mary High School. For a short time, she went to Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin, and Spring Hill College in Mobile, but then switched to Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, where she became a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology in 1969.