Lelehnia DuBois

Founder/Director

Lelehnia DuBois’s story begins long before Humboldt Grace.

In 1977, her family became part of the back-to-the-land movement and made a home in the Emerald Triangle. She grew up in a world shaped by mountains, homesteads, unconventional families, cannabis prohibition, and communities that learned to rely on one another.

The values of that world stayed with her: independence, stewardship of the land, community responsibility, and the belief that knowledge carried through lived experience has value.

She also witnessed the other side of that history—the fear and disruption created by the drug war, and what happened when families and rural communities were forced to live outside systems that did not recognize them.

As California began moving toward legalization, Lelehnia stepped into advocacy. Her work eventually took her through cannabis policy, publishing, human rights, community media, cultural preservation, and nonprofit leadership.

But across each chapter, the question remained remarkably consistent:

How do we move forward without erasing the people, places, knowledge, and history that brought us here?

That question ultimately became the foundation of Humboldt Grace and, later, the Humboldt Legacy Project.