NEW YORK (AP) — The woman who resigned as head of a local NAACP branch after her parents said she was white said Tuesday that she started identifying as black around the age of 5, when she drew self-portraits with a brown crayon, and "takes exception" to the contention that she tried to deceive people.
Rachel Dolezal said Tuesday on NBC'S "Today" Show that some of the discussion about her has been "viciously inhumane."
Dolezal carefully constructed a life as a black civil rights activist in the last decade in the inland Northwest.
She has resigned as president of the Spokane, Washington branch of the NAACP, lost her position as a part-time African studies instructor at a local university, lost her job as a freelance newspaper columnist and become the subject of a probe by the city Ethics Commission.
The furor has touched off national debate over racial identity and divided the NAACP itself.
Dolezal, a 37-year-old woman with a light brown complexion and dark curly hair, graduated from historically black Howard University and was married to a black man. For years, she publicly described herself as black and complained of being the victim of racial hatred in the heavily white region.
Rachel Dolezal says she identifies as black - Yahoo News