Duster has spoken often about Wells’ legacy, and previously worked on the books Ida from Abroad and Ida In Her Own Words. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Wells worked as a journalist and publisher who wrote a well-documented investigative account called “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all its Phases,” which was conducted at great risk to her own personal safety. She is also one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and was a leader in the civil rights movement and the women’s suffrage movement.

A few weeks ago, Wells was honored with a posthumous Pulitzer Prize citation for “her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching.”