 She is the first African-American woman to become Illinois' lieutenant governor and the fourth woman lieutenant governor overall after Corinne Wood, Sheila Simon, and Evelyn Sanguinetti.Stratton was born to a schoolteacher mother and doctor father, and raised in the South Side of Chicago, where she attended Kenwood Academy.Stratton earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and a Juris Doctor from DePaul University.