Rachel Dolezal, president of the NAACP's Spokane chapter, resigned Monday amid a national race scandal sparked late last week after her parents accused her of misrepresenting herself as African-American for years.
"It is with complete allegiance to the cause of racial and social justice and the NAACP that I step aside from the Presidency and pass the baton to my vice president, Naima Quarles-Burnley,"
she wrote on the chapter's Facebook page. "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."
Dolezal's parents, Ruthanne and Larry Dolezal of Montana, spoke out last week after they were contacted by both law enforcement investigators as well as reporters about their daughter.
They said that Dolezal, 37, had made complaints to police about threatening messages and at least one noose she'd encountered on her property. Additionally, a reporter told them she identified herself as part-African-American on a government form when she applied to the citizen police ombudsman commission.
Dolezal's parents said that their daughter is not black, and has Czech, Swedish, and German roots with "faint traces" of Native American ancestry like them.
When confronted on camera and asked if she is African-American, Dolezal said she didn't understand the question, and quickly fled the scene.
On Saturday, Dolezal's adopted brother, 22-year-old Ezra Dolezal, said that Rachel is mostly estranged from her parents, and sought a new life in a new place years ago.
"She told me not to blow her cover about the fact that she had this secret life or alternate identity," he said in an
interview with CNN. "She told not to tell anybody about Montana or her family over there. She said she was starting a new life."
Police said Friday they are dropping the investigations that stemmed from Dolezal's harassment complaints. The city government is still investigating her application and appointment to the citizen police ombudsmen commission.