Virginia AG says he wore blackface at college party

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia sank deeper into political turmoil Wednesday when another top Democrat — Attorney General Mark Herring — admitted putting on blackface in the 1980s, when he was a college student.

With Gov. Ralph Northam’s career in extreme peril over a racist photo in his 1984 medical school yearbook, Herring issued a statement saying he wore brown makeup and a wig in 1980 to look like a rapper during a party as a 19-year-old at the University of Virginia.

Herring, 57, said he was “deeply, deeply sorry for the pain that I cause with this revelation.”

The attorney general issued the statement after rumours of a blackface photo of Herring had circulated at the Capitol for a day or more. But in his statement, he said nothing about the existence of such a photo.

The disclosure further roils the top levels of Virginia government. Democratic Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who would be next in line if Northam resigned, was confronted with uncorroborated allegations of sexual misconduct earlier this week. He denied the accusations, calling them a political smear.

Herring would be next in line to be governor after Fairfax.

In his statement, Herring said he and two friends dressed up to look like rappers they listened to, including Kurtis Blow, admitting: “It sounds ridiculous even now writing it.”

“That conduct clearly shows that, as a young man, I had a callous and inexcusable lack of awareness and insensitivity to the pain my behaviour could inflict on others,” he said.

But he also said: “This conduct is in no way reflective of the man I have become in the nearly 40 years since.

Herring, who plans to run for governor in 2021, is among those who have urged Northam to resign after the discovery of a photo on Northam’s yearbook profile page of someone in blackface standing next to a person in a Ku Klux Klan hood and robe.