#29: Ida Bells
The names here are almost too good. If I wasn’t doing my research, I might even start to believe that some of them are made up. Yet no, Ida Bells was indeed a real person, just like Israel Bissell, and a pretty amazing one at that (you know that’s the case when a person has achievements in multiple fields).
One of the most amazing details about Bell’s life is that she was born into slavery. I can only imagine what it takes to go from slavery to activism and eventually to investigative journalism. Bells’ works were very influential in uncovering the horrors perpetrated on Black people in the South even after the end of slavery.