Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has gone quiet since Saturday’s controversial press conference in which he announced he would not resign.
The past few days have been a whirlwind that all began when Northam’s old yearbook page surfaced late Friday. It features a photo of two men, one in a Klan robe, the other in blackface.
Less than a day after multiple outlets confirmed the racist photo was real, a groundswell of opposition landed right in front Governor Ralph Northam’s executive mansion.
“Ho ho, hey hey, No Governor in the KKK,” protestors chanted.
Dana Williams was among the protestors. She was shocked when she first saw the yearbook photo online Friday. “To see it it was very disheartening, saddening, offensive,” Wiliams said.
Her father, David Williams, remembers when Barack Obama came to town, stumping for then candidate Northam. “They stood there and said this is a man of integrity. And this is a good man. And I figured you know, I’ll give him my vote," David Williams said. "But now I’d like to take my vote back.”
Contacted later, both said they were unswayed by Northam’s press conference Saturday afternoon. That’s when the Governor denied he was in the photo, but admitted to wearing blackface least once in his life, during a Michael Jackson dance contest. “And I used just a little bit of shoe polish to put under my… or on my cheeks," Northam said Saturday before adding "and the reason I used a very little bit is because I don’t know if anybody’s ever tried that but you cannot get shoe polish off.”
Northam, a veteran and pediatrician, won election in 2017 as part of a broad Democratic wave. The day after he was elected, he told reporters his campaign’s success was a rebuke to divisive politics. “The hatred, the bigotry, the politics that is tearing this country apart that’s not the United States of America that people love," Northam said then. "It’s certainly not the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
While not known as a compelling public speaker, Northam has been widely praised for his ability to get things done in a bipartisan manner. Under his leadership last year, Virginia finally passed Medicaid expansion.
He advocates for what he calls “The Virginia Way,” including the phrase in his State of the Commonwealth address just last month. “The Virginia Way charges us to put people ahead of politics, and to leave this place better than we found it.”
But now many say Northam is failing to do just that. He’s lost support from Democrats and Republicans, locally and nationally. After Saturday’s press conference, Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner urged him to resign.
And former Governor Terry McAuliffe, with whom Northam served as Lieutenant Governor, echoed the call on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. “If Ralph is watching this today I know how much he loves this Commonwealth of Virginia, and you’ve got to make the right decision. You’ve got to make the right moral decision," McAuliffe pleaded. "We have to bring people together. We’ve had a horrible history in Virginia.”
McAuliffe says that right moral decision is to resign. That’s an opinion echoed by the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, and the NAACP.
If Northam steps down, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax will step UP. Fairfax is a lawyer in Northern Virginia. His ancestors were enslaved and freed in the Commonwealth.
Vo Carpenter, a local NAACP leader, says Fairfax becoming Governor would be a sort of poetic justice. “Lt. Governor Fairfax would have the ability to really define his career and really put his stamp on the history of Virginia as we try to transition beyond our old segregated past, where actions like this may have been acceptable in certain parts of Virginia. He’s able to say 'We’re gonna move past this and really move the state towards reconciliation,'” Carpenter said.
The Lieutenant Governor hasn’t demanded Northam resign. But in a statement, Fairfax did say that this defining moment in Virginia history requires quote “leaders with the ability to unite.”
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
