Jane Bolin was born on April 11, 1908 in Poughkeepsie, New York to Gaius Bolin and Matilda Emery. Her father, Gaius, was the first black person to graduate from Williams College and he had his own law practice. Because of his success, Bolin had a comfortable childhood and was inspired to be an attorney after being exposed to the beauty of his leather-bound books and the horror of the court cases they contained. 

La Malinche went by many names, but there was one that, up until recent history, tarnished the story of our April AMPLIFY feature: traitor. 

We’re back, with the second installment of Amplify! I have a weird connection to our February Amplify feature, Frances Harper, but we’ll get to that later. Frances Harper initially came on to my radar as the first black woman to publish a short story, but her actual life story is just as compelling as any work of fiction.

Our first Amplify feature is Dolores Huerta. Huerta has worked, and continues to work, tirelessly for the rights of farmworkers. She is the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom Award and the Eleanor Roosevelt Award, she is in the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and received the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship.