Woman accused of lying about race has Miss. ties
An NAACP leader, professor and artist with ties to Jackson has made national headlines after her parents alleged their daughter has been falsely portraying herself as African-American.
Rachel Dolezal, who now lives in Washington, graduated from Belhaven University in 2000 and was active in the Jackson community through Voices of Calvary Ministries, her mother Ruthanne Dolezal told The Clarion-Ledger.
Her daughter, she says, came to Jackson after graduating from high school in Troy, Montana, because of her interest in Mississippi-based civil rights activist and Voices of Calvary founder John Perkins. She was also drawn to Belhaven's art program.
During her time in Jackson, Rachel kept busy with her artwork and volunteerism with Voice of Calvary Ministries, where she tutored children and taught drawing classes.
Perkins' daughter Joanie Perkins-Potter, a local attorney, is a friend of Rachel's who still speaks with her regularly.
She said Rachel is "definitely white."
"She's a young girl who came here really believing in social justice and wanting to make a change in the world," Perkins-Potter said of Rachel's time in Jackson, noting she remembers her interest in and identification with the city's black community.
"I think she had an identity crisis, and it got worse and worse," she said.
Attempts by The Clarion-Ledger to reach Rachel on Friday were unsuccessful.
Perkins-Potter said after Rachel moved with her husband, an African-American man she married in Jackson in 2000, "I noticed that she learned to braid hair, started wearing braids and her skin started being more tan."
Perkins-Potter said she thinks when Rachel identified a black man as her father, "she's really just trying to say he's her play father ... and she just got carried away."
She noted Rachel refers to her as "Aunt Joanie" though they are not related.
Rachel also worked with Belhaven President Roger Parrott on recruiting and retaining diverse students at the college, according to her LinkedIn page.
Parrott said he had no comment when reached by cell phone on Friday, but did say she was never employed by the university. He did not elaborate.
"There are people there who are going to remember Rachel very well. And they will remember her as she was – the real Rachel," her mother Ruthanne said.
37-year-old Rachel, who married an African-American man from Mississippi in Jackson in 2000, is now a part-time professor in the Africana Studies Program at Eastern Washington University and the local leader of the Spokane, Washington, NAACP chapter.
In recent years, her mother said, she has begun presenting herself as an African-American woman, often using makeup and changing her hairstyle to appear more black.
Her parents, who are both white, submitted photos to The Washington Post allegedly showing Rachel as a young girl with blond hair and light skin.
Ruthanne said she has not had contact with her daughter in years and suspects it's because she wouldn't want others to see her two white parents.
"She took on this profile of being an African-American woman or biracial, and that image, of course, didn't match our image," Ruthanne said.
Rachel told the Spokane newspaper the controversy mostly stemmed from litigation and allegations of abuse among the family, and that the question about her background "is not as easy as it seems. There's a lot of complexities …"
When asked about the lawsuit mentioned by her daughter, Ruthanne said she had no comment.
The NAACP released a statement on the issue Friday.
"NAACP Spokane Washington Branch President Rachel Dolezal is enduring a legal issue with her family, and we respect her privacy in this matter. One's racial identity is not a qualifying criteria or disqualifying standard for NAACP leadership," the statement read.
Rachel has reportedly made several reports of harassment and other crimes to police in Idaho and Washington, including that she received a hate mail package at her NAACP post office box and a swastika was placed on the door of the Human Rights Education Institute, where she previously worked, the newspaper reported.
Rachel's biography on Eastern Washington University's website states that while living in Idaho "at least eight documented hate crimes targeted (Rachel) Dolezal and her children."
Dolezal's mother said she was originally contacted by the media in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where Rachel lived for seven years.
"Law enforcement is conducting an investigation of claims Rachel has made about hate crime threats and in that process of the investigation, the question of 'What is your true ethnicity?' came up, and we were contacted and agreed to speak to the press," Ruthanne said. "It is a sad situation, but the truth is best for everyone."
She continued to say Rachel's background is predominantly Czech, German and Swedish.
Staff writer Jimmie Gates contributed to this report.
Contact Kate Royals at (601) 360-4619 or kroyals@gannett.com. Follow @KRRoyals on Twitter.