Rachel Dolezal Resigns
After being accused of falsely portraying herself as black, Spokane’s NAACP leader 
Rachel Dolezal quit today, saying that she remains committed to fighting for “what is right and good”. Late last week, Dolezal’s career as a black civil rights leader began to unravel after her parents came forward to say that their daughter isn’t actually black. She canceled a chapter meeting for today, where she was expected to speak about the furor that her racial identity has sparked. Nonetheless, other members of the organization say that they still intended to gather for the meeting, but before the event could take place, Dolezal posted her resignation on Facebook.
Dolezal insists that this isn’t a sign that she’s “quitting”, but rather refers to it as a “continuum”, about moving the case of human rights and the “Black Liberation Movement”. In her official resignation statement, Dolezal complained that while serious problems plagued the black community of her native Spokane, the dialogue has shifted from the agenda of the NAACP to her own personal identity. However, nowhere in the statement did Dolezal deny her apparent racial ruse.
NAACP members had been planning to demand that Dolezal step down, and one member of the chapter had organized an online petition calling for her to take a leave of absence, saying that her actions showed a lack of both integrity and credibility. Six months earlier, Dolezal had been elected president of the local NAACP chapter. Last Friday, the NAACP had issued a statement supporting Dolezal, who for a long time now has served as a figure in Spokane’s human rights community, and teaches African studies to college students. According to Dolezal’s mother, however, Rachel isn’t actually black, but rather of Czech, Swedish and German ancestry. To back up this claim, Dolezal’s mother produced her daughter’s birth certificate.
The city of Spokane is investigating whether Dolezal lied about her ethnicity when she applied to be on the police board. On Friday, the police said that they were suspending investigations into racial-harassment complaints Dolezal had filed, including one from earlier this year where she claimed to have received hate mail.
Courting Bernie’s Supporters
Despite clinching the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton’s still got plenty of hurdles to face if she wants all Democrats to back her. Bernie’s supporters seem reluctant to back her, viewing her as just as bad as Trump. Every time Bernie mentioned her name at a California rally last week, his supporters booed. But that doesn’t mean Hillary isn’t going to try to court their support (she sure needs it), and has praised his candidacy as a way to improve her own campaign.
It seems only likely that Hillary will offer her former foe more olive branches in the weeks to come, such as compromises on social issues and reforms in a Democratic primary process that Bernie said was rigged. Nonetheless, it will be a bitter pill for many of Bernie’s supporters to swallow, especially as many of them helped the aging Vermont senator go from political obscurity to a major figure. If you were to say a year ago that he would end up earning nearly 10 million votes and winning over 20 states during the primaries, few people would believe you. According to a poll by Reuters, Bernie supporters have become increasingly reluctant to support Hillary, and less than half of them have said that they’d vote for her if she becomes the nominee. Only 41 percent of his supporters said last month that they’d vote for Clinton over Trump, down from 50 percent in April.
The best way for Hillary to win over the voters that once backed Bernie would be to show that she’ll still stand behind her more progressive decisions, such as opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Keystone oil pipeline from Canada, supporting a higher minimum wage and reducing income inequality. In the next couple weeks, she needs to make her position on these issues clear if she wants to court Bernie’s supporters. Yet more than anything else, it seems likely that they’ll support her if only to not support Trump, as if for both the Democratic and Republican candidates, much of their support seems to come from members of their party wanting to choose the “lesser of two evils”.
About Nelson Lewis
An exposure to politics at a young age had a profound effect on media maven Nelson Lewis, who worked as a volunteer for numerous Republican politicians in and around his native Savannah. Nelson worked as a reporter and eventually anchor at two Savannah television stations growing up, WJCL ABC-22 and WTGS FOX-28, also recording voice teasers for airing on Fridays on WJCL-FM KIX 96 and previewing his upcoming stories, which aired on the Sunday evening news.
One of Nelson’s favorite experiences at WJCL was reporting live from the St. Patrick’s Day Parade (America’s second largest) from 1998-2000. Continuing in the spirit of his grandfather’s pioneering and trailblazing footsteps (he was the first to bring all-color television and stereo to the Savannah market), Nelson became the first person in Savannah market to bring a kid’s perspective to local news as its first youth reporter. In fact, one of the competing stations, WSAV NBC-3 hired their own youth reporter, Sean Champion, 18 months after Nelson began his reports and WJCL/TGS’s ratings dramatically increased.
Work In Political Media
While a sophomore and junior at Lynn University, Nelson Lewis hosted “Politijam”, a lively political debate show that became well known across the university campus and served as the media editor of the univeristy’s weekly EPulse newspaper. While at Lynn, Nelson was selected to represent the entire undergraduate student population as a member of Lynn University’s Academic Task Force, charged with the duty of streamlining the core curriculum of the universities.
While attending Lynn’s College of International Communication, Nelson developed a friendship with Irving R. Levine, a well-known and nationally recognized correspondent for NBC News who became the network’s first full time economics correspondent, and was the creator of the precursor to CNBC. After a 45-year career in journalism, Levine went on to become Dean of Lynn’s communication program. After finishing college, Nelson Lewis followed Levine’s suggestion and moved to Washington, DC where his first job was as a press intern for a Republican congressman, which then led to a job booking at the Fox News Channel from 2006-2010. Here, he was able to put his love of politics and interest in the Republican Party to good use.
Upon the suggestion of Mr. Levine, Nelson Lewis enrolled in the Masters of Professional Studies in Journalism (International Politics) program at Georgetown University in 2009, where a special emphasis was placed on the dissolution of America’s Fairness Doctrine and on the major player in its demise, Bruce Fein.
Nelson was honored to be invited to speak at a roast honoring Levine’s 2009 death at the National Press Club, where he spoke alongside Levine family members and contemporaries such as former Meet the Press Moderator Marvin Kalb. He subsequently wrote a letter to the editor published in The Hill newspaper eulogizing Levine as a “top-notch raconteur” who many others have tried to emulate.
From his work at Fox News, Nelson Lewis was able to take a firsthand role in the DC journalism scene, and was blessed with the opportunity of meeting entertainment, political, and academic luminaries on a daily basis, including numerous sitting and former representatives, senators, governors and cabinet secretaries. These unique experiences gave Nelson a front row seat to many historic events and gave him a firsthand experience of how the Washington system works, from how laws are created to how news is made.
Through Nelson Lewis’ work creating Her Golf Network, coupled with his extensive booking experiences in segment producing gained at America’s highest rated cable news channel and through his time performing key internships at places such as WPBT’s Nightly Business Report in Miami, where he honed his scriptwriting skills, and at WTOC in Savannah, where he provided copyediting and on-site production assistance at the 2004 Sea Island G-8 summit, have provided him with a solid foundation and understanding of the news business. His time as a reporter/anchor growing up prior to his undergraduate studies helped him get an early start at doing what he loves most, reporting.
