Texas ‘Black Woman’ Verda Byrd Finds Out She Is Actually White

Texas woman Verda Byrd grew up thinking she was a black woman, but recently found out that she was actually white. Byrd has stated emphatically that she is “no Rachel Dolezal.” In 1942, Daisy Beagle, mother of 10, was injured in a fall and her husband, Earl Beagle, had already walked out on the family. All of the Beagle children were removed from the home and placed up for adoption.

Verda Byrd, of Converse, was adopted by Ray and Edwinna Wagner — a black family from Newtown, Kansas. Bryd grew up as an only child and believed that she was black. The Texas woman married twice and had a daughter of her own. In 2013, she started searching for information about her biological parents.

Byrd describes her biological parents as “white transients.” Her biological parents named Verda “Jeanette.” Daisy Beagle fell 30 feet in a trolley accident, and the state took all the children from the home because she could no longer care for them.

“Jeanette Beagle does not fit Verda Byrd,” she said. “Jeanette Beagle does not have an education. Jeanette Beagle has no Social Security money because she does not work. She never went to kindergarten.”

The now-70-year-old woman was told by her elderly mother that her birth parents were white. Bryd said she did not garner any other details about her biological parents, and the mother who raised her soon died.

“She took it to her grave that she had a white daughter. It was unbelievable,” Vera Byrd said during an interview with KENS 5 TV.

Even after hearing the shocking revelation that she was not a black woman but a white woman, Bryd said she the news does not change the way that she sees herself.

“I’m comfortable with being a black woman. I grew up not questioning birth or anything else because it was never told to me that I was born white,” Bryd noted.

Byrd shared her thoughts about the Rachel Dolezal saga, an issue which sparks frustration for the Texas woman.

“She lied about her race. I didn’t lie because I didn’t know,” Byrd said when noting that both women chose to identify as black, but came to that conclusion based upon an entirely different set of circumstances.

It is not known if Byrd’s biological parents are still alive, or if she is searching for and hoping to meet any of her siblings.