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Nikole Hannah-Jones is the closest incarnation of investigative journalist Ida B. Wells. Like her role model, she uses her pen to fight for truth and democracy while slaying haters (especially on Twitter aka X). And they both faced personal danger for keeping it real. Nikole’s work is especially crucial today with growing threats on civil, voting and reproductive rights. No matter how much racists try to ban “The 1619 Project,” dubbed “the greatest story never told,” Nikole’s mission is to spread the word by any means necessary. That includes her new Democracy Summit – a meeting of brilliant minds like Sherrilyn Ifill and Ta-Nehisi Coates -- and the 1619 series on Hulu, which won the 2023 Critic’s Choice Award for Best Limited Documentary Series. After all, Nikole insists, “It is Black people who have been the perfectors of our democracy.” She’s paying it forward by training her peers to go deeper through the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which was relocated from her alma mater at the University of North Carolina to Morehouse College. She’s also teaching the next generation of truth tellers through her 1619 course at Howard University and a variety of new HBCU programs launched there by her Center for Journalism & Democracy. In the process, she is also shining a light on other lingering issues like health equity and reparations.