Zena Kay Gresham

“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

“Oh, the Bible and its curses! One of the best known occurs in Genesis 9 and involves Noah, his son Ham, and a very drunken night. After Ham visits his father’s tent and finds him highly intoxicated and completely naked, Ham tells his brothers Shem and Japheth, who cover their father with a garment while averting their eyes. Noah responded by condemning Ham’s son Canaan to a life as “a servant of servants.” Most curses in the Bible are generational, which means Noah was censuring all of Ham and Canaan’s descendants as well. Although race is never mentioned in the passage, an error in translation—some interpreted “Ham” to mean “dark” or “black”—engendered the idea that Noah had cursed all Black people,”
― Rachel Dolezal, In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World

“As I learned about U.S. history in school, I empathized with those whose free labor helped build this country. It never fails to trouble my mind (and hurt my heart) to think that just over a hundred and fifty years ago in the so-called land of the free, people owned other people. The institution of chattel slavery in America was as horrific as it was unconscionable.”
― Rachel Dolezal, In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World

“Whenever I think about fishing, I’m always reminded of a passage from one of Grandpa Perkins’ speeches in which he gave the old proverb “If you give a man a fish . . .” a decidedly new twist. “If you teach a man to fish,” he said, “he may never eat because all that really matters is—who owns the pond.”
― Rachel Dolezal, In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World