Charles was born on Grand Turk Island of the Turks and Caicos. She was raised an only child of a Haitian mother and a Cuban stepfather and moved to the United States at the age of seven, where they settled in Miami. She began her career in journalism in 1986 as a 14-year-old high school intern at the Miami Herald. She is a graduate of Miami Jackson High School, Booker T. Washington Junior High and Dunbar Elementary in Overtown, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 1994.UNC School of Media and Journalism – Jacqueline Charles
