‘Black’ Texan Whose Birth Parents Are White Is Outraged Over Rachel Dolezal’s Deceit

The Root ^ | June 23 2015 | BREANNA EDWARDS

[nickcarraway]

Verda Byrd, who was adopted by black parents as a child, finds out 70 years later that she is white.

Verda Byrd recently found out after seven decades of living as a black woman that she was born to white parents.

Although some may view Byrd's situation as vaguely similar to that of Rachel Dolezal's recent outing as white by her parents after several years of her passing as black, Byrd is vehement that her case is not the same and she gets in twist every time the former NAACP leader's name is mentioned, KHOU reports.

"She lied about her race," Byrd said. "I didn't lie about my race because I didn't know."

Byrd was born in 1942 to people she described as white transients. Her biological father, Earl Beagle, walked out on his family. Then Daisy Beagle, her birth mother, had five children to feed as a single mom. After she fell 30 feet to the ground in a trolley accident, the state of Missouri took the children, considering the mother unable to care for them.

That's how little Jeanette Beagle came to be adopted by a well-off black family from Newton, Kan.: Ray and Edwinna Wagner changed the child's name to Verda, the news station notes, and there began Byrd's life as a black person. She was raised as a light-skinned black kid, the Wagners' only child, living in comfort on Ray's salary as a railroad porter.

[MrB]

From a biblical standpoint as well.

[Lee'sGhost]

Yeah, but why are you dragging the president into this?

[longfellow]

He’s an asshole not a jerk.