The Biography of Carrie P. Meek

Carrie P. Meek won election to the House in 1992 as one of the first African American lawmakers to represent Florida in Congress since Reconstruction. Focusing on the economic and immigration issues of her district, Carrie secured a coveted seat on the House Appropriations Committee as a freshman Representative. While able to work with Republicans on health issues, she sharply criticized welfare reform efforts during the mid–1990s.

Carrie Pittman, the daughter of Willie and Carrie Pittman, was born on April 29, 1926, in Tallahassee, Florida. Her grandmother was born and raised in Georgia as a slave. Carrie Pittman’s parents began their married life as sharecroppers, though her father later became a caretaker and her mother a laundress and the owner of a boarding house. Carrie was the youngest of 12 children, and a tomboy. Carrie’s family lived near the old Florida capitol in a neighborhood called the “Bottom.” Carrie Pittman starred in track and field while earning a bachelor of science degree in biology and physical education at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee in 1946. She enrolled at the University of Michigan graduate school because blacks were banned from Florida graduate schools, though the state government would pay her out–of–state tuition “if we agreed to get out of Dodge” she later recalled.

She graduated in 1948 with an M.S. degree in public health and physical education. Afterward, Pittman taught at Bethune Cookman, a historically black college in Daytona Beach, where she coached basketball and taught biological sciences and physical education. She later taught at Florida A&M. In 1961, as a divorcée with two young children, Carrie Pittman Meek moved to Miami–Dade Community College, where she spent the next three decades teaching and administrating, eventually serving as a special assistant to the vice president of the college. In 1978, she won election to the Florida state house of representatives, defeating 12 candidates. She served from 1979 to 1983, chairing the education appropriations subcommittee.

From 1983 to 1993, Carrie served in the Florida senate. She was the first African–American woman elected to that body and the first black to serve there since Reconstruction. Earning a reputation as a particularly effective legislator, she passed a minority business enterprise law and other legislation to promote literacy and reduce the dropout rate.

Carrie focused on the needs of her district, which included issues arising from unemployment, immigration, and a natural disaster. However, Carrie used her Appropriations seat principally to try to expand federal programs to create jobs and provide initiatives for African Americans to open their own businesses. Carrie also authored a measure to modify Social Security laws to cover household workers. Carrie sought to extend U.S. residence for immigrants and refugees who were excluded from two 1997 bills addressing Central American immigration. In 1999, she strove to obtain more accurate census counts in her district by providing a measure whereby welfare recipients could work temporarily for the U.S. Census Bureau without losing their benefits.