Breaking: White NAACP Leader Who Says She Is Black Resigns, Cites ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬ Movement

Rachel Dolezal, the 37-year old president of the Spokane, Washington NAACP has just resigned after being challenged on her race. Read her full statement here.

Rachel Dolezal was an Internet firestorm late last week, after a local Spokane, Washington reporter during an interview asked her if she is African-American and she walked away from the camera. 

Dolezal’s birth parents say they are both white and so is she, but Dolezal very clearly disagreed. “Actually, I don’t like the term African-American; I prefer black. So, if asked, I would say, yes, I consider myself to be black,” she told KREM.

Dolezal is the president of the Spoke chapter of the NAACP, or was, until minutes ago.

The NAACP immediately and very publicly last week issued a statement fully supporting her, but for whatever reason, Dolezal has decided “that a separation of family and organizational outcomes is in the best interest of the NAACP,” and announced she will “step aside from the Presidency.”

RELATED: Anti-LGBT Activists Comparing White NAACP Leader’s False Claim Of Being Black To Being Transgender

In a lengthy statement addressed to the NAACP’s Executive Committee and its members, which Dolezal also posted to Facebook, she called it “a true honor to serve in the racial and social justice movement here in Spokane and across the nation.”

She lamented that “the dialogue has unexpectedly shifted internationally to my personal identity in the context of defining race and ethnicity,” despite “concerns at the forefront of the current administration of the Spokane NAACP,” including, “Police brutality, biased curriculum in schools, economic disenfranchisement, health inequities, and a lack of pro-justice political representation.”

Dolezal said the “movement is larger than a moment in time or a single person’s story,” adding:

While challenging the construct of race is at the core of evolving human consciousness, we can NOT afford to lose sight of the five Game Changers (Criminal Justice & Public Safety, Health & Healthcare, Education, Economic Sustainability, and Voting Rights & Political Representation) that affect millions, often with a life or death outcome.

She also promised to “never stop fighting for human rights and will do everything in my power to help and assist, whether it means stepping up or stepping down, because this is not about me. It’s about justice. This is not me quitting; this is a continuum. It’s about moving the cause of human rights and the Black Liberation Movement along the continuum from Resistance to Chattel Slavery to Abolition to Defiance of Jim Crow to the building of Black Wall Street to the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement to the #‎BlackLivesMatter movement and into a future of self-determination and empowerment.”

 

RELATED:

‘I Consider Myself To Be Black’: White NAACP Leader Rachel Dolezal Addresses Controversy (Video)

Watch: Parents Of White NAACP Leader Who Says She Is Black Speak Out

 

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