Hello
and welcome to The Rob Burgess Show. I am, of course, your host, Rob
Burgess.
On
this, our 57th episode our guest is Rachel Dolezal.
Rachel
Dolezal holds an MFA from Howard
University. Her scholarly research focus is the intersection of race,
gender and class in the contemporary Black diaspora, with a specific
emphasis on Black women in visual culture. She is a licensed
intercultural competence and diversity trainer, dedicated to racial
and social justice activism.
She
has worked as an instructor at North Idaho College and Eastern
Washington University, where she also served as adviser for the
schools’ Black Student Unions, and has guest lectured at Spokane
Community College, the University of Idaho, Gonzaga University and
Washington State University.
Dolezal
began her activism in Mississippi, where she advocated for equal
rights and partnered with community developers, tutoring grade-school
children in Black history and art and pioneering African American
history courses at a predominantly white university. She is the
former director of education at the Human Rights Education Institute
in Idaho and has served as a consultant for human rights education
and inclusivity in regional public schools. She recently led the
Office of Police Ombudsman Commission
to promote police accountability and justice in law enforcement in
Spokane, Washington, and was the president of the Spokane chapter of
the NAACP. She is the devoted mother of three sons.
Dolezal
garnered international attention after a June 11, 2015 interview she
conducted with Jeff Humphrey of KXLY-TV. The interview begins with
Humphrey asking Dolezal about hate crimes she had reported to the
police. It ends abruptly after he asks her about a photo on the
Spokane chapter of the NAACP's Facebook page which shows an African
American man, Albert Wilkerson, who she claimed was her father.
It
was later confirmed by Dolezal's birth parents, Larry and Ruthanne
Dolezal, that she was born white. Dolezal subsequently resigned her
position at the NAACP on June 15, 2015. The same day, she also lost
her position as an instructor at Eastern Washington University and
her position as a freelance writer for The Inlander. And, on June 18,
2015, the Spokane City Council voted unanimously to remove her from the
Office of Police Ombudsman Commission.
On
March 28, Dolezal released the book she wrote along with Storms
Reback, “In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White
World,” through BenBella Books. Wilkerson wrote the Foreword to the
book.
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Until next time.
