Rachel Doležal is an artist, activist and former college professor who was outed by the media as a white woman who had knowingly passed as black in 2015. She has been an exhibiting artist and art educator for over two decades. She has lectured as a professor of Art History and Black Studies at North Idaho College, Eastern Washington University and Whitworth University.

Her written work as an academic includes regular contributions for the Inlander and The Black Lens newspaper and can also be found in The War on Poverty: A Retrospective – a Rutgers University textbook. She is the bestselling author of her memoir In Full Colour which describes how she grew from being the child of white evangelical parents to a respected activist and educator who identifies as Black.

Born in Montana, Doležal’s activism started in Missippi where she advocated for equal rights and pioneered African American history classes at a university that was predominantly white. She was President of the Spokane NAACP and served as Chair of the Office of Police Ombudsman Commission in Spokane overseeing justice law enforcement and police accountability before she found herself at the centre of a media storm over her race in 2015.
Regardless of her race, she is a woman who has been many other things: a teacher, a mother, a civil rights leader and an undeniable talented artist who has had her work displayed New York’s United Nations’ Headquarters and featured in The Artist’s Magazine.