Rachel Dolezal plans to name her son after Langston Hughes

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Rachel Dolezal, who in August announced that she was pregnant even as outrage was swirling around her following the news that she was born white but had been passing herself off as African-American, has announced the name she intends to give her son: Langston Hughes.

“I’m naming him Langston because of Langston Hughes’ ‘Mother to Son’ poem,” Dolezal said on Monday. “Life hasn’t been easy for me at all, but I keep going. I’m still climbing, so don’t you sit down and stop. You keep going, and I want that to be a lesson for all my sons.”

The poem Dolezal referenced, “Mother to Son,” is one of Hughes’ most famous pieces and describes the struggle for equality. “Well, son, I’ll tell you: life for me ain’t been no crystal stair,” the poem reads. “Don’t you set down on the steps ’cause you finds it’s kinder hard. Don’t you fall now — for I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’, and life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”

In the same interview, Dolezal admitted to struggling with her emotional state since she was ‘outed’ as white. “I’ve struggled with depression to the point where I wonder if it’s even in my kids’ best interest for me to stay around,” Dolezal said. “I feel like I’m a liability to my own children.”