Michelle Duster

CTL-E-6096 · Person · writer · 1963–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07317 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6096.

Michelle Duster is a Chicago-born author, professor, public historian, and champion of racial and gender equity. The HistoryMakers biography states she was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 20, 1963, earned a B.A. in psychology from Dartmouth College in 1985, and earned an M.A. in media studies from The New School in 1997. She is the great-granddaughter of journalist and activist Ida B. Wells. Duster edited two anthologies of Wells's writing, Ida in Her Own Words in 2008 and Ida From Abroad in 2010, and in 2008 she joined the Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee, which commissioned the Ida B. Wells National Monument. In 2015 she became an adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago. Her biography Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells was published on January 26, 2021, by Simon & Schuster, followed by the children's book Ida B. Wells, Voice of Truth in 2022. That same year she spoke at the White House for the signing of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, and she resides in Chicago.

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 4 — 747 Program, Wave 11; fourth Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Michelle Duster entity in the live graph at 3,763 entities (exact / normalized / alias match + token containment; CLEAR). ID CTL-E-6096 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — Scan Tail Wave 3 packet ordered reserve, position 11 of 35 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #1560). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Black Chicago first — Chicago-born, Chicago-resident public historian whose Wells legacy work includes Chicago monument and street-name history; national reach follows from that Chicago base. Vital status: Living — verified. The HistoryMakers interviewed her on May 23, 2024 and states she resides in Chicago, Illinois (accessed 2026-10-16), and a Smithsonian author page carries her byline dated January 2, 2025; no death report was found. STATISTICS — STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Born December 20, 1963 in Chicago (The HistoryMakers, accessed 2026-10-16); B.A. Dartmouth 1985 and M.A. The New School 1997 (The HistoryMakers); Ida B. the Queen published January 26, 2021 (Simon & Schuster, accessed 2026-10-16); HistoryMakers interview dated May 23, 2024 (The HistoryMakers). No conflict in the opened sources on these figures. MEDIA: photo HELD (Portrait photograph of Michelle Duster '85 credited 'Photo by P. Dembinski' on the Dartmouth news story about Ida B. Wells Drive — specific image for a later PHOTO-001 pass to verify; no license claimed. — named candidate only; file-level rights verification per CTL-PHOTO-001 still required; no license claimed); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6096-michelle-duster.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A (person record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Persons carry no map in the packet standard.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created chart (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced statistics and timeline fact) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged.) | audio = HELD (No rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged.)

Relationships

• Columbia College Chicago — affiliated with
  The HistoryMakers states she became an adjunct professor in the Business and Entrepreneurship Department at Columbia College Chicago in 2015
• Ida B. Wells — related to
  The HistoryMakers and Simon & Schuster both identify Duster as the great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells; she edited Wells anthologies and authored her biography — family/descent relationship is stated here with the allowed related_to type because no descendant type is in the allowed list

Sources

• The HistoryMakers, "Michelle Duster's Biography" (accessed 2026-10-16) — born December 20, 1963 in Chicago; Dartmouth B.A. 1985; M.A. The New School 1997; great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells; edited Ida in Her Own Words (2008) and Ida From Abroad (2010); Columbia College Chicago adjunct professor from 2015; Ida B. the Queen 2021; Voice of Truth 2022; interviewed May 23, 2024; resides in Chicago — https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/michelle-duster (primary source · build store)
• Simon & Schuster, "Ida B. the Queen" official publisher page (accessed 2026-10-16) — book written by Wells's great-granddaughter Michelle Duster; published 2021-01-26 — https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Ida-B-the-Queen/Michelle-Duster/9781982129811 (primary source · build store)
• Smithsonian American Women's History Museum / Smithsonian Magazine, "Michelle Duster" author page (accessed via search 2026-10-16) — educator, public historian and activist whose advocacy led to street names, monuments and markers; author of Ida B. the Queen and Ida B. Wells, Voice of Truth about her paternal great-grandmother; author byline dated January 2, 2025 — https://Www.Smithsonianmag.Com/blogs/smithsonian-american-womens-history-museum/author/michelle-duster/ (primary source · build store)

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Record CTL-E-6096 · Combined Graph record U-07317 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 2 mapped relationships.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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