Embattled Spokane NAACP head Rachel Dolezal resigns amid race flap

Rachel Dolezal, the NAACP official who has been accused of engaging in a years-long misrepresentation of her racial identity, said Monday that she will step down as the head of the organization’s Spokane, Washington, chapter.

Dolezal made the announcement in a post on the Spokane NAACP Facebook page, in which she said she would “pass the baton” to the chapter’s vice president, Naima Quarles-Burnley.

“Please know I will 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,” wrote Dolezal. “It’s about justice. This is not me quitting; this is a continuum.”

She found herself at the center of a national controversy last week after her parents said publicly that their daughter is white, despite her having identified herself as African-American for years. Spokane NAACP members subsequently organized a petition demanding her resignation.

“It’s not about race. It’s about integrity,” Kitara Johnson, one of the chapter members calling for Dolezal’s ouster, told KREM-TV in Spokane. “If you’re a leader, you have to have integrity. She clearly lacks integrity. The other piece is credibility.”

In a statement reacting to her resignation, the national NAACP echoed Dolezal’s pivot away from discussing the personal identity of individuals.

“The NAACP is not concerned with the racial identity of our leadership but the institutional integrity of our advocacy,” said NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks in the statement. “Our focus must be on issues, not individuals. Ms. Rachel Dolezal has decided to resign to ensure that the Spokane branch remains focused on fighting for civil and human rights.”

A multicultural group of a few dozen people rallied in downtown Spokane on Monday night in support of the NAACP. All held signs saying "Integrity Matters."

Dennis Mitchell, of Spokane, who led the rally, said, "It's about forgiveness tonight, and we want to forge ahead."

"It feels like the ultimate betrayal," Angela Jones, an NAACP member from Spokane, said of Dolezal after the rally. "Why would you not be honest?"

Dolezal has kept out of public eye since the controversy erupted. She was scheduled to appear at a Spokane NAACP meeting Monday but abruptly canceled the event amid a furor that played out in the media and on social media in particular. Some, including the Spokane chapter’s committee head, Lawrence Burnley, suggested she was acting beyond her remit in unilaterally canceling the meeting.

In her resignation post on Facebook, Dolezal did not address the charges against her directly, other than to comment that others have expressed their views on the matter “absent the full story.” Instead she said she said she was resigning because “a separation of family and organizational outcomes is in the best interest of the NAACP.”

Until recently, she worked as an adjunct instructor in the Africana studies department at Eastern Washington University. However, her contract expired on June 12 and has not been renewed for the coming semester. A spokesman for the university told Al Jazeera via email that a Web page identifying her as a professor has been taken down because her contract has expired and because describing her as a professor was incorrect.