Description

Nkechi Amare Diallo is an American former college instructor and activist known for presenting herself as a black woman, despite being born to white parents. Dolezal was president of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington, from 2014 until June 2015, when she resigned in the midst of controversy over her racial identity. She was the subject of public scrutiny when her parents publicly stated that she was pretending to be black but was actually white. The statement by Dolezal's parents followed Dolezal's reports to police and local news media that she had been the victim of race-related hate crimes; a police investigation did not support her allegations. Dolezal had also claimed on an application form to be mixed-race and had falsely claimed that an African-American man was her father and that her brother was her son. In the aftermath of the controversy, Dolezal was dismissed from her position as an instructor in Africana studies at Eastern Washington University and was removed from her post as chair of the Police Ombudsman Commission in Spokane over "a pattern of misconduct". In 2015, Dolezal acknowledged that she was "born white to white parents" but maintained that she self-identified as black.