SPOKANE, Wash. — Rachel Dolezal, the embattled president of Spokane’s NAACP chapter, resigned from her post with the civil rights organization.
Dolezal has been at the center of a firestorm ever since her parents came forward last week and said she is lying about being African-American.
Her adoptive brother has also come forward and claimed “she grew up a white, privileged person up in Montana.”
In 2002, Dolezal graduated from Howard University with a master of fine arts degree. That same year, using her maiden name, she sued the school for discrimination based on her gender, pregnancy and for being white.
A Monday meeting scheduled for Monday evening where she planned to explain herself was abruptly canceled as the controversy grew.
In a Facebook post, Dolezal said she was stepping down because the dialogue about race and injustice in the country “has unexpectedly shifted internationally to my personal identity in the context of defining race and ethnicity.”
“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,” she wrote.
Dolezal was elected president of the local NAACP chapter about six months ago.
The NAACP issued a statement Friday supporting Dolezal, who has been a longtime figure in Spokane’s human-rights community and teaches African studies to college students.
Ruthanne Dolezal, Rachel Dolezal’s mother, said the family’s ancestry is Czech, Swedish and German, with a trace of Native American heritage.
She produced a copy of her daughter’s Montana birth certificate listing herself and Larry Dolezal as Rachel’s parents.
The city of Spokane is investigating whether Dolezal lied about her ethnicity when she applied to be on the police board.
Police on Friday said they were suspending investigations into racial-harassment complaints filed by Dolezal, including one from earlier this year in which she said she received hate mail at her office.