SPOKANE, Wash.—Rachel Dolezal resigned as president of the NAACP’s Spokane chapter Monday amid a furor over racial identity that erupted when her parents came forward to say she has been posing as black for years when she is actually white.
The announcement, posted on the civil rights organization’s Facebook page, said the attention surrounding Dolezal has distracted from the group’s goals.
“In the eye of this current storm, I can see that a separation of family and organizational outcomes is in the best interest of the NAACP,” said Dolezal, a longtime figure in Spokane’s civil rights community who was elected to the NAACP post six months ago. “Please know I will never stop fighting for human rights.”
City officials, meanwhile, are investigating whether she lied about her ethnicity when she landed an appointment to Spokane’s police oversight board. On her application, she said her ethnic origins included white, black and American Indian.
