Lakesia Collins

A memorial on Sept. 26, 2025, at the tree where student Demartravion "Trey" Reed was found hanging on the campus of Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. The authorities say Reed died by suicide, but in a nation ready to jump to judgment and in a state with its history of racial violence, that conclusion has not ended the story. (Rory Doyle/The New York Time)

Sen. Lakesia Collins: America is on fire. Let’s stop arguing over the smoke.

October 10, 2025 at 5:00 a.m.

America is in a moment in which the temperature of our national discourse has reached a boiling point and the consequences are deadly.

Members of the group ROAR for AJ protest outside the McHenry County Government Center on July 16, 2019, in Woodstock. One step that can be taken to improve the child welfare system in Illinois is to assure that every child in the system has a lawyer.

Lakesia Collins and Ann Gillespie: A modest first step for children in Illinois DCFS? Give them a lawyer.

April 23, 2023 at 5:00 a.m.

The headlines sadly are all too familiar. With disturbing frequency, news outlets report about the problems experienced by children under the care of Illinois' Department of Children and Family Services....

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