US civil rights activist quits after race dispute

A US civil rights activist campaigning for the rights of African Americans has resigned, just days after her parents said she is a white woman posing as black. Rachel Dolezal, who served as president of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the country’s oldest and largest civil rights organisation, said the controversy over her race had shifted dialogue away from key social and political issues. “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,” Dolezal said in a statement on the NAACP Spokane chapter’s Facebook page on Monday. Dolezal, 37, came under intense scrutiny last week after a white couple who identified themselves as her biological parents came forward to say she had misrepresented herself as black. They told media that their daughter is white with a trace of Native American heritage. They produced photos of her as a girl with fair skin and straight blond hair.