SPOKANE, Wash. — Rachel Dolezal stepped down as head of the Spokane, Wash., chapter of the NAACP on Monday amid accusations she lied about her race.
Earlier, a meeting where Dolezal was expected the accusations was canceled.
Dolezal made a lengthy statement on her resignation on Facebook.
Dolezal’s estranged parents have accused her of falsely portraying herself as black for years, claiming she is white.
The revelation sparked a nationwide controversy on race and identity, especially because she is president of the local NAACP chapter and is chairwoman of a police oversight committee.
“We are her birth parents,” her father, Lawrence Dolezal, said Friday. “We do not understand why she feels it’s necessary to misrepresent her ethnicity.”
Dolezal has said she received threatening hate mail in the past, but the Spokane Police Department said it dropped its investigation on the letters because of lack of leads. The investigation was dropped before the controversy about her race became public.
Adopted brother speaks out
More of her relatives have joined the chorus of criticism.
Her adopted brother, Ezra Dolezal, said she took him aside three years ago and asked him “not to blow her cover” about her alternate identity.
“She said she was starting a new life … and this one person over there was actually going to be her black father,” Ezra Dolezal said.
Dolezal has identified herself as at least partly African-American, but her Montana birth certificate states she was born to two parents who say they are Caucasian.
She began identifying herself more with the African-American community in 2007, according to her parents.
