Then
No Black Floridian had served as lieutenant governor or won election to statewide executive office.
On January 4, 2011, Jennifer Carroll took office as Florida’s 18th lieutenant governor during the inauguration of Governor Rick Scott. Florida Memory, the State Archives’ digital collection, dates photographs of Carroll at the ceremony to that day.
Born in Trinidad and Tobago and raised in the United States, Carroll had served in the U.S. Navy before entering public office. She later represented the Jacksonville area in the Florida House of Representatives and became the first Black Republican woman elected to that chamber.
Her statewide election carried several distinct milestones. Carroll was the first Black person to serve as Florida lieutenant governor, the first woman elected to the office, and Florida’s first Caribbean-American lieutenant governor.
Carroll’s path joined immigration, military leadership, business, and elected service. She came to the United States as a child and later enlisted in the Navy. Over a career spanning two decades, she rose from enlisted service to lieutenant commander, working in aviation maintenance and logistics. She earned college degrees while serving and retired from the Naval Reserve. That record challenged assumptions about who could manage technical systems and lead within both military and civilian institutions.
Before statewide office, Carroll operated a consulting business and served as executive director of Florida’s Department of Veterans’ Affairs. In the state legislature, she worked on economic development, transportation, veterans’ concerns, and government operations. Her election as lieutenant governor placed a Black immigrant woman next in Florida’s constitutional line of succession, a visible change in a state where political authority had historically been reserved for white men.
Historic firsts should be recorded precisely without turning public officials into symbols beyond criticism. Carroll resigned in 2013 after investigators questioned work she had previously performed for a veterans’ charity; she was not charged with a crime. Her departure remains part of the record, just as the barrier she crossed does. January 4 recognizes the verified achievement of taking office while preserving the complexity of a public career. Her inauguration demonstrated that military skill, education, migration, and electoral participation could converge in statewide leadership—and that Florida’s image of who could hold executive authority had permanently widened.
The milestone also linked Florida to the wider Caribbean history that shapes the state. Carroll’s journey from Trinidad and Tobago to naval service and elected office made immigration part of the story of Black political leadership. Her oath showed young Floridians that more than one route could lead to statewide responsibility.