NEW YORK — The woman who resigned as head of a NAACP chapter after her parents said she is white said Tuesday that she started identifying as black around age 5, when she drew self-portraits with a brown crayon, and “takes exception” to the contention that she tried to deceive people.

Rachel Dolezal said on NBC’s “Today” show that some of the discussion about her has been “viciously inhumane.”

Asked by Matt Lauer if she is an “an African-American woman,” Dolezal said: “I identify as black.”

Dolezal’s career as a civil rights activist in the Pacific Northwest crumbled in the past few days.

She resigned Monday as president of the Spokane, Washington, branch of the NAACP, lost her position as a part-time African studies instructor at a local university, was fired as a freelance newspaper columnist and is being investigated by city Ethics Commission over whether she lied about her race on her application when she landed an appointment to Spokane’s police oversight board.

The furor has touched off national debate over racial identity and divided the NAACP itself. The civil rights organization has said that leadership jobs don’t require a person to be black.

Dolezal, a 37-year-old woman with a light brown complexion and dark curly hair, graduated from historically black Howard University and was married to a black man. For years, she publicly described herself as black or partly black.