After being outed as a white woman, former NAACP chapter president Rachel Dolezal has opened up about the controversy surrounding her race and declared that she identifies as black.

Dolezal, 37, resigned on Monday from her position as president of the Spokane, Washington, NAACP chapter amid revelations that she is a white woman pretending to be African-American, reports the Los Angeles Times.

While speaking on NBC's "Today," Dolezal told Matt Lauer that she began seeing and portraying herself as black when she was 5 years old.

"I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon, and black curly hair," she told Lauer.

Despite the backlash that her story has received, Dolezal insisted she has not been deceptive about her race.

"I do take exception to that because it's a little more complex than me identifying as black or answering a question of, are you black or white?" she said.

Dolezal went on to defend attacks that her identity is a form of blackface.

"I have a huge issue with blackface. This is not some freak 'Birth of a Nation' mockery blackface performance," she said. "This is on a very real, connected level. How I've had to go there with the experience, not just a visible representation, but with the experience."

When asked how she maintains her darkened skin complexion, Dolezal responded, "I certainly don't stay out of the sun."

The controversy about her race emerged after Dolezal's estranged parents revealed on Thursday that she is actually white and is "being dishonest and deceptive with her identity."

"We are her birth parents," her father, Lawrence Dolezal, told CNN on Friday. "We do not understand why she feels it's necessary to misrepresent her ethnicity."

Although the Dolezals said they do not have a problem with Rachel advocating for the advancement of African-Americans, they said they find it problematic she is being deceptive about it.

"Rachel has wanted to be somebody she's not. She's chosen not to just be herself but to represent herself as an African American woman or a biracial person. And that's simply not true," said Ruthanne Dolezal, according to NBC affiliate KREM.