Former NAACP Spokane president Rachel Dolezal told Today's Matt Lauer in an exclusive interview that pretending to be black was about "survival."

In the live interview with Lauer Tuesday, Dolezal finally addressed the controversy surrounding her false claims about her racial heritage and the reasons for her resignation Monday from her position as NAACP Spokane president. Saying she'd make the same decisions (for the most part) if given a chance, Dolezal defended her "transracial" identity, saying that at her core she was an African-American, something she's felt since she was five.

"I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon, and black curly hair," she told Lauer, explaining later that she began to openly identify as black when she received custody of one her brothers, Izaiah, who is African-American.

Dolezal said she took "exception" to accusations that she has deceived people about her identity, saying "it's a little more complex" than just a simply question of whether she is black or white, but one of "very real" connection and "experience." But she especially bristled at the description of her actions as a form of "blackface":

This is not some freak 'Birth of a Nation' mockery blackface performance. 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.

Decrying the "viciously inhumane" campaign against her, Dolezal said she hoped that she could help change the way people look at race and ethnicity:

As much as this discussion has somewhat been at my expense recently, and in a very sort of viciously inhumane way come out of the woodwork, the discussion is really about what it is to be human. I hope that that can drive at the core of definitions of race, ethnicity, culture, self determination, personal agency and, ultimately, empowerment.

Though she said "in retrospect" she might have handled a few interviews "differently," Dolezal told Lauer that she would make the same decisions again, saying that identifying as black, like many choices she made, was about "survival":

There are probably a couple of interviews that I would do differently if circumstances, in retrospect, I knew what I know now. But overall, my life has been one of survival and the decisions that I have made along the way, including my identification, have been to survive and to carry forward in my journey and life continuum.

Dolezal also had some hard words for her birth parents, faulting them for trying to "whitewash" the work she's done for social justice and civil rights progress. ​

The controversy over Dolezal's false claims of being biracial erupted when her birth parents, Lawrence and Ruthanne, were asked by a reporter to confirm that Rachel was their biological daughter. Saying "we weren't going to lie," the parents revealed the inconvenient fact of her white lineage. Since the revelation, Dolezal's repeated misrepresentation of herself--including claiming to be a victim of a hate crime and identifying herself as multiracial on a police oversight commission application--has come under scrutiny. Also making headlines in the last couple of days is Dolezal's lawsuit against historically black college Howard University for racial discrimination against her for being white. With pressure mounting for her removal from within the organization, Dolezal announced her resignation from her NAACP position Monday.

Video, partial transcript via TODAY.