Breaking Down the Four Pillars of the Illinois Black Caucus with Senator Kimberly Lightford

Senator Kimberly Lightford

“48% of Blacks are born into poverty and 46% live their full lives in poverty.”

Senator Kimberly Lightford shared these alarming statistics during her interview on The Black Dispatch. These statistics reveal the generational poverty that exists in Black communities and ignite Senator Lightford’s passion to address systemic racism and injustice as a Illinois Black Caucus Leader. In her interview, Senator Lightford discusses the barriers to the growth of the Black community. Some of the barriers Senator Lightford discussed were access to healthy foods, adequate health care, employment discrimination, and fair lending in banking. The Illinois Black Caucus aims to address these barriers through their four pillars:

• Criminal justice

• Economic access

• Education

• Health care.

Coincidentally, Senator Lightford noted, these four pillars align with the five social determinants of health, which are “the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks” (health.gov). The five social determinants of health are:

• Economic Stability

• Education Access and Quality

• Health Care Access and Quality

• Neighborhood and Built Environment

• Social and Community Context.

Senator Lightford understands that in order to decrease generational poverty, these systemic challenges must be addressed through an equity lens. The alignment of the Illinois Black Caucus pillars and the social determinants of health, reveal that the overall health of Black residents are impacted by systemic racism.

In addition, Senator Lightford is passionate about addressing equity in education. She is an advocate for universal preschool for all and believes that more Black children deserve to be in gifted education and not special education.