Rachel Dolezal Breaks Silence: ‘I Identify as Black’

Variety Staff/Variety/

Rachel Dolezal, the civil rights activist in Washington state accused of lying about her race who resigned from her NAACP chapter, broke her silence on the “Today” show on Tuesday.

When asked by Matt Lauer whether she is African-American — a question she has previously dodged — Dolezal said, “I identify as black.”

“I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon and black curly hair,” she said, which started as early as 5 years old.

Dolezal took offense when Lauer suggested that she may have deceived people by identifying as black.

“I do take exception to that because it’s a little more complex than me identifying as black or answering a question of, are you black or white?” she said.

Dolezal came under fire last week after her estranged parents revealed that she was a Caucasian woman by birth who was pretending to be African American. She stepped down from the NAACP chapter in Spokane, where she served as president, on Monday.

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