Rachel Doležal - In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World

Praise for In Full Color

Finally, Rachel Doleal in her own voice and words shares her intriguing account and path of conscious self-definition, embodied in a life of activism. Hers is a meandering journey that evidences a genesis in a very tender age. Her rightful claim to an identity and heritage: Who can challenge its authenticity? The account of a full human, simply being herself, assists us all to see race for what it is, a highly toxic, very destructive and questionable means of defining a common humanity. Rachel forces us all to question what we have come to accept until now without critical engagement. She is undeniably no accidental activist.

Bishop Clyde N.S. Ramalaine, author of Preach a Storm, Live a Tornado: A Theology of Preaching and a Khoisan, lifelong activist, and leading mind on building a race-free, just, and equitable society in post-Apartheid SA

Rachel Doleals early life memoir is not simply a narrative of radical activism. It is full of physical textures and sensationsflat-tops, braided hair, oiled moisturized Black skin, Dashikis, and fluidity of sexual orientationjuxtaposed against some horrible domestic brutalities. It serves to critique the cultural straitjacket of traditionalist white Protestant work ethic society. At this moment of alt-right reactionism, it punctures the fake nostalgia for an imagined pre-multiculturalism era of supposed purity and authenticity. Unsurprisingly, her willingness to find a home and cultural vocabulary in the black community makes Ms. Doleal a target for those advocates of continuing conservative orthodoxies and social hierarchies. That in itself should encourage us to be open to her account of her personal and social evolution and pleasures of diffrance.

Gavin Lewis, Black British writer and academic

The storm of vitriol Rachel received in the national spotlight was as cruel as it was undeserved. Her deep compassion for others shines through every chapter of her life and has clearly motivated her truly outstanding advocacy work.

Gerald Hankerson, president of the NAACP Alaska Oregon Washington State

US Census Bureau research suggests that millions of Americans change their racial self-identification from one census to the next. Here is the chance to learn about one persons transition, with all the nuance that no media sound bite could ever capture. Its an incredible story, from rural poverty in a white Montana town to historically black Howard University in Washington DC, spanning partnerships with African American activists and confrontations with white supremacists. And its absolutely necessary to know the whole story in order to understand the extraordinary racial journey that Rachel Doleal has made.

Ann Morning, associate professor of sociology at New York University and author of The Nature of Race: How Scientists Think and Teach about Human Difference

In Full Color

In Full Color

FINDING MY PLACE IN A BLACK AND WHITE WORLD

Rachel Doleal

with Storms Reback

BenBella Books, Inc.

Dallas, TX

Copyright 2017 by Rachel Doleal

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Mother to Son from THE COLLECTED POEMS OF LANGSTON HUGHES by Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad with David Roessel, Associate Editor, copyright 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Additional rights by permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Penguin Random House LLC for permission.

The events, locations, and conversations in this book while true, are recreated from the authors memory. However, the essence of the story, and the feelings and emotions evoked are intended to be accurate representations. In certain instances, names, persons, organizations, and places have been changed to protect an individuals privacy.

BenBella Books, Inc.

10440 N. Central Expressway, Suite 800

Dallas, TX 75231

www.benbellabooks.com

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First E-Book Edition: March 2017

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Doleal, Rachel, 1977 author. | Reback, Storms, author.

Title: In full color : finding my place in a black and white world / Rachel Doleal with Storms Reback.

Description: Dallas, TX : BenBella Books, Inc., [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016046569 (print) | LCCN 2016047908 (ebook) | ISBN 9781944648169 (trade cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781944648176 (electronic)

Subjects: LCSH: Doleal, Rachel, 1977 | Women civil rights workersUnited StatesBiography. | Racially mixed familiesUnited StatesBiography. | African AmericansRace identityUnited States. | Women, WhiteRace identityUnited States. | Passing (Identity)United States. | National Association for the Advancement of Colored PeopleBiography. | Spokane (Wash.)Race relationsBiography. | Racially mixed familiesMontanaBiography. | Coeur dAlene (Idaho)Biography.

Classification: LCC E185.98.D64 A3 2017 (print) | LCC E185.98.D64 (ebook) | DDC 306.84/60973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046569

Editing by Leah Wilson

Copyediting by James Fraleigh

Proofreading by Jenny Bridges and Cape Cod Compositors, Inc.

Cover design by Sarah Dombrowsky

Doleal cover and author photography by Carl Richardson

Reback author photography by Tammy Brown

Text design and composition by Publishers Design and Production Services, Inc.

Printed by Lake Book Manufacturing

Distributed by Perseus Distribution

www.perseusdistribution.com

To place orders through Perseus Distribution:

Tel: (800) 343-4499

Fax: (800) 351-5073

E-mail:

For Izaiah, Franklin, Langston, and Esther

Well, son, Ill tell you:

Life for me aint been no crystal stair.

Its had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor

Bare.

LANGSTON HUGHES

Contents

I WAS BORN IN 1938 in Birmingham, Alabama, which was one of the most segregated cities in the country at the time. I have vivid memories of the citys strict segregation laws and how they affected me as a child: being barred from Whites-Only restaurants, told to sit at the back of the bus, forced to drink from Colored water fountains, and obliged to step off the sidewalk to allow white people to pass.

When I was five, my father took me and my three-year-old brother to a theater that was open to Black people for just a single viewing each weekthe late show on Thursday eveningsand we had no choice but to sit in the balcony. For every other show, the theater was reserved solely for white people. The show my father took me and my brother to ended so late the buses and trollies were no longer running, forcing us to walk home. My father chose the most direct route, which happened to go through a white neighborhood. He held our hands as we walked, and when a shadowy figure emerged from beneath a tree, I could feel my fathers grip grow tighter. Then came the ominous words: