found an article of a wm in the same county they believed to be black and was trying to award him. they interviewed Dolezal about it http://m.spokesman.com/stories/2015/apr/29/man-lauded-as-african-american-councilman-was/
Dolezal said she was familiar with Oliver’s name from references in books that researched the African-American community’s roots in Spokane. She’s seen a picture of bearded Oliver, who admittedly doesn’t look African-American, but that doesn’t really prove anything, she added.
“Visible identity is just one factor,” Dolezal said. Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896, the year Oliver took his council seat, was similarly light-skinned, she noted. Plessy was considered “colored” even though seven of his eight great-grandparents were white.
People of mixed race in that era often tried to pass as white “for purposes of survival,” Dolezal said. “Now, that might be seen as a little bit of a traitorous act. Given the time, it’s forgivable, looking back in hindsight.”