Zena Kay Gresham

“If you’re having fun, you’re sinning” was the message my parents drilled into my head at a very young age. Taught that my natural behavior was somehow wrong, I learned to censor and repress myself, and cried myself to sleep nearly every single night during my tween and teen years, with my face jammed into a pillow so nobody would hear.”
― Rachel Dolezal, In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World

“The idea that Black people are victims of the so-called Curse of Ham, that they actually deserve to be treated poorly, remains embedded in our collective psyche to this very day.”
― Rachel Dolezal, In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World

“While I may have been able to flee the racial discrimination that was so common in Birmingham when I was a child, it continued to haunt me throughout my adult life. I did my best to combat racism with the most positive attitude”
― Rachel Dolezal, In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World

“A LITTLE GIRL, my skin was pale, my hair blonde, and my face full of freckles. While I may have looked like Laura Ingalls Wilder, that’s not how I felt. I loved drawing pictures of myself when I was young, and whenever it came time to shade in the skin, I usually picked a brown crayon rather than a peach one. Peach simply didn’t resonate with me. I felt like brown suited me better and was prettier. I could see that my skin was light, but my perception of myself wasn’t limited to what my eyes could take in.”
― Rachel Dolezal, In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World