A 72-year-old Texas woman considered herself to be African-American until she found out that her biological parents were white seven decades later.
Verda Byrd, who grew up in an adoptive black family in a small Kansas town, pointed out the difference between her shocking story and that of Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP leader who publicly identified herself as black for years before her parents outed her. "She lied about her race. I didn't lie because I didn't know," said Byrd, according to USA Today.
Byrd was born Jeanette Beagle in 1942 to white parents, Earl and Daisy Beagle. When she was young, her father abandoned her mother, leaving her to raise 10 children on her own. Daisy was forced to put the children up for adoption by the state of Missouri after suffering injuries in a trolley accident, leaving her unable to care for them.
Byrd was brought up by black parents who told her she was a light-skinned African-American, an identity she was "comfortable" with. "I grew up not questioning birth or anything else because it was never told to me that I was born white," she said.
Byrd married two times and gave birth to a daughter without the slightest idea that her birth parents were white. However, two years ago, when she told her adoptive mother, Edwinna Wagner, that she was keen on finding her biological mother and father, Wagner informed her that she was born to white parents, according to the New York Daily News.
Since the shocking revelation, Byrd has not changed anything about her life and still identifies as a black woman. "I would not go back to my birth name if I had to," she said, according to Inquistr. "Jeanette Beagle does not fit Verda Byrd. Jeanette Beagle does not have an education. Jeanette Beagle has no social security money because she never worked. She never went to kindergarten... I'm comfortable with being a black woman."