Professor from Kansas City who posed as Black resigns from George Washington University
A white history professor from Kansas City who recently gained international headlines for pretending to be a Black woman has resigned, George Washington University said Wednesday.
On Twitter, the university in Washington, D.C., where Jessica Krug worked, said she has resigned, effective immediately. Her courses for the semester will be taught by other faculty members, the university said.
In a blog post on Medium last week, titled “The Truth, and the Anti-Black Violence of My Lies,” Krug wrote that she had pretended to be a Black woman for much of her adult life, deceiving friends and colleagues.
“I am not a culture vulture,” Krug wrote. “I am a culture leech.”
Before her resignation, Krug taught history with a focus on Africa and the African diaspora. She is also the author of “Fugitive Modernities: Kisama and the Politics of Freedom,” a finalist for book awards named for Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass.
Krug drew comparisons to Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who was formerly a chapter president for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and claimed she was Black.
In a Twitter post Friday, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said Krug graduated “a few years ahead” of him at the Barstow School, a co-ed private college prep school in south Kansas City.
“She was interesting back then, but it is really surprising she’s tried to pass as Black for 20 years,” Lucas wrote. “Her apology in reflection is warranted.”
