'Trans-racial' Pan-Africanist Rachel Dolezal legally changed her name back in October, court documents filed in Spokane, Washington reveal. Dolezal, who identifies as black woman, made national headlines when after years of networking among black activist circles - her white parents came forth to charge that she had been forging her identity. Dolezal confirmed the transition on Wednesday, March 1, with a tweet that promised, "the story behind my name change will be in my book."
Dolezal, 39, now goes by Nkechi Amare Diallo; a name that she chose in order to identify more closely with the African roots she lays claim to. Nkechi is short for Nkechinyere, which is an Igbo name that means "what God has given," or "gift of God," to Nigerians. Diallo means "bold."
The book to which Dolezal referred to in her tweet is "In Full Color," a memoir due out this month, that was passed on by dozens of publishers before it was picked up. Such has been the struggle for Dolezal since she was exposed as a white woman. After stepping down from her leadership role in the Spokane chapter of the NAACP she lost her job as an instructor at Eastern Washington University. Since the June 2015
Since the June 2015 bombshell, Dolezal says she has applied for and been rejected by over 100 jobs. Despite her hardships she has refused to revert to life as a white woman in America, stating in an interview with The Guardian that she won't "stoop and apologize and grovel and feel bad about it."
“The times that I tried to explain more, I wasn’t understood more," Dolezal says. "Nobody wanted to hear, ‘I’m pan-African, pro-black, bisexual, an artist, mother and educator.’ People would just be like, ‘Huh? What? What are you talking about?’ So I felt like by not talking about my biological ancestry, I gave people the opportunity to relate to me as an individual, not part of a group.”
Source: nydailynews.com
