Alcee Hastings and Corrine Brown joined Meek in January 1993 as the primary Black Floridians to serve in Congress since 1876 because the state’s districts had been redrawn by the federal courts in accordance with the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
On her first day in Congress, Meek mirrored that whereas her grandmother, a slave on a Georgia farm, might by no means have dreamed of such an accomplishment, her dad and mom informed her that something was potential.
“They always said the day would come when we would be recognized for our character,” she informed The Associated Press in an interview that day.
In Congress, Meek championed affirmative motion, financial alternatives for the poor and efforts to bolster democracy in and ease immigration restrictions on Haiti, the birthplace of a lot of her constituents.
She additionally was identified for her liberal opinions, folksy but highly effective oratory and colourful Republican bashing.
“The last Republican that did something for me was Abraham Lincoln,” she informed the state delegation to the 1996 Democratic Convention in Chicago.
Meek joined her son Kendrick, a former state trooper and state senator, in a 2000 sit-in at then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s workplace to protest an finish to affirmative motion insurance policies. She had lengthy argued in favor of such insurance policies, since incomes her grasp’s diploma from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1948. At the time, Blacks weren’t admitted to graduate faculties in Florida.
Meek determined to not search a sixth time period in 2002. Her son Kendrick succeeded in successful her closely Democratic district, a seat he held for 4 phrases earlier than an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2010.
After leaving Congress, Carrie Meek returned to Miami and created a basis to work on training and housing points. She was additionally criticized for a few of her enterprise dealings.
She lobbied for a biotech park that was deliberate for Miami’s impoverished Liberty City neighborhood however by no means materialized. County authorities ultimately began a felony investigation, and the park’s developer was arrested in October 2009 on fees that he stole practically $1 million from the mission.
Congressional information confirmed that Meek was paid whereas her son sought thousands and thousands of federal {dollars} for the mission. Meek stated she was paid as a advisor, and each mom and son denied their efforts had been linked.
Before getting into politics, Meek labored as a instructor and administrator at Miami-Dade College.
She was elected to the Florida House in 1978, succeeding pioneer Black legislator Gwen Cherry, who had been killed in an auto accident. She grew to become one of many first African Americans and the primary Black girl to serve within the Florida Senate because the 1800s
Carrie Pittman was born to Willie and Carrie Pittman in Tallahassee on April 29, 1926, and was the youngest of 12 youngsters. Her father labored in close by fields as a sharecropper and her mom took in laundry from white households.
She graduated from Florida A&M University in 1946 with a level in biology and bodily training. The college named its constructing for Black historical past archives in her honor in 2007. She was a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
She accepted a place at Bethune Cookman College as an teacher and have become the establishment’s first feminine basketball coach. In 1958, she returned to Florida A&M as an teacher in well being and bodily training. She held that place till 1961.
Meek continued her educating profession at Miami Dade Community College as the primary Black professor, affiliate dean, and assistant to the Vice President from 1961 to 1979.
Then, she started her trailblazing political profession, representing Florida’s 17th Congressional District as a Democratic Florida State House Representative.
In Congress, Meek was a member of the highly effective Appropriations Committee and labored to safe $100 million in help to rebuild Dade County as the realm recovered from Hurricane Andrew.
She retired in 2002 and shifted her focus to the Carrie Meek Foundation, which she based in November 2001, to offer the Miami-Dade neighborhood with much-needed sources, alternatives, and jobs. Meek spearheaded the Foundation’s each day operations till 2015 when she stepped down attributable to declining well being.
Meek is survived by her youngsters Lucia Davis-Raiford, Sheila Davis Kinui and Kendrick B. Meek, seven grandchildren, 5 great-grandchildren and a number of nieces and nephews.
Funeral preparations had been pending.
