Yearbook staff at odds over racist photo
NORFOLK, Va. — The racist yearbook photo that could sink Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s career may have been mistakenly placed on his profile page — but even if it were put there intentionally, it’s unlikely that many students would have noticed, according to alumni who put together the publication or submitted pictures to it 35 years ago.
Dr. Giac Chan Nguyen-Tan, a physician practicing in Connecticut, remembers that a page he laid out for the 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook was changed without his knowledge before publication.
“Could (the offensive photo) have been slipped in there? Absolutely,” he said, adding that he doesn’t remember laying out Northam’s page, which ended up including a photo of one person in blackface and another dressed in a Ku Klux Klan outfit.
Fellow yearbook staffer Dr. William Elwood disagrees.
Elwood said he doubts any photos were mixed up — and he says it’s unlikely that someone could have pulled a prank because a limited number of people had keys to the yearbook room.
Regardless of how the photo got there, it’s possible not many noticed what was in the yearbook; few students enrolled in the intense medical school program took the publication seriously — or even looked at it — after it was published, several classmates said. For many, the yearbook was simply not a priority.
Northam and his former roommate, Dr. John “Rob” Marsh, rushed off to the military after graduation. Others embarked on their residencies.
“The yearbook comes out in the fall when you’re gone,” said Marsh, who roomed with Northam for two years before graduating in 1983.