The Illinois Legislative Black Caucus Foundation is proud to announce the start of its interns, Keith Davies and Jada Rice, Keith is a rising junior at Morehouse College. Keith is Majoring in Film Production and minoring in Political Science. He serves as Morehouse College Pre-Alumni Association Parliamentarian. Keith is originally from Springfield, Illinois and is the immediate past secretary of the Springfield NAACP Branch, being the youngest person to ever serve in its capacity.
Jada Rice is a rising freshman at Spelman College where she plans to major in Psychology. Jada recently graduated from Williamsville High School. During high school, she served as a secretary for the 4-H YLT (Youth Leadership Team), she was a member of A.S.C.E.N.D., and she also served on Ronald McDonald Teen Council. While interning for the ILBCF, Jada hopes to gain better outreach skills and more experience with the computer as well as provide helpful ideas to improve black businesses.
“This is our first summer having interns in the history of our organization, and we couldn’t have had better candidates. Keith and Jada both are hard workers and have a history of achievement,” said Larry Luster, Executive Director of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus Foundation. “As our organization continues to move forward, we want to extend educational opportunities to train our future leaders.”
Both, Keith and Jada, will be working this summer at ILBCF headquarters in Springfield, Illinois to help develop and expand the ILBCF’s outreach efforts, draft legislative fact sheets, manage social media and various office tasks to give them additional professional training. Their internship will end prior to them returning to Atlanta in the Fall.
“We are excited to have passionate interns like Jada and Keith on board this summer,” said Paul Williams, Chairman of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus Foundation. “This is our inaugural year of hosting in-house interns, and we look forward to expanding our program as our organization continues to grow.”
The ILBCF summer internship goals are to ensure each intern gains an understanding of issues that are affecting the black community and learns how to address those concerns through advocacy. Interns are responsible for creating, developing and hosting a series of outreach events with aim of giving them the skills to take these skills with them during their professional journey.
The ILBCF is also proud to introduce our summer fellow, Cartecia Lawrence, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she double majored in Legal Studies and Afro-American Studies. At UW- Madison, Cartecia was one of two Letters and Sciences scholars awarded the prestigious Meyerhoff Undergraduate Excellence Award for Scholarship, Leadership and Service. Cartecia is originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in Education with a focus on Instructional Accommodations at Francis Marion University. She just completed her second year as a History teacher and Teach for America corps member in Walterboro, South Carolina. She is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated and a former AASPIRE intern at the City of Madison Department of Civil Rights.
“Developing the fellowship program has been one of my goals for some time,” comments Senator Kimberly Lightford, chairman of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, “I am proud that this vision has come into fruition. The foundation works aggressively to prepare scholars like Cartecia to lead us into a brighter future.”
Cartecia’s role as a fellow will allow her to craft and contribute to a multitude of different initiatives such as legislative drafting, issue development, creating facts sheets, serving as the ILBCF’s policy expert, communications and attending several seminars to help her discover more aspects of state government.
For more information regarding our internship and fellow programs please contact ILBCF Executive Director, Larry Luster at info@ilbcf.org.