Virginia’s governor pledges to work toward racial healing
RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia’s governor Ralph Northam pledged to work at healing the state’s racial divide Saturday, even as calls mounted for him and the lieutenant governor to resign — capping an astonishing week that saw all three of the state’s top elected officials embroiled in potentially career-ending scandals.
Virginia’s embattled lieutenant governor on Saturday called for authorities, including the FBI, to investigate sexual assault allegations made against him while defying widespread calls for his resignation with a plea for “space in this moment for due process.”
Democratic Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax issued a statement repeating his strong denials that he had ever sexually assaulted anyone and made clear he does not intend to immediately resign, despite having lost almost his entire base of support.
Gov. Northam announced his intention to stay at a Friday afternoon Cabinet meeting, according to a senior official.
In so doing, Northam defied practically the entire Democratic Party, which rose up against him after a racist photo on his 1984 medical school yearbook page surfaced and he acknowledged wearing blackface in the 1980s.
In his first interview since the scandal erupted, a chastened Northam told The Washington Post on Saturday that the uproar has pushed him to confront the state’s deep and lingering divisions over race, as well as his own insensitivity. But he said that reflection has convinced him that, by remaining in office, he can work to resolve them.
“It’s obvious from what happened this week that we still have a lot of work to do,” Northam said in the interview, conducted at the governor’s mansion. “There are still some very deep wounds in Virginia, and especially in the area of equity.”
Northam said he planned to work for the rest of his term to address issues stemming from inequality, including improving access to health care, housing, and transportation. He also repeated his contention that he is not the one pictured on his yearbook page in blackface. But he could not explain how it wound up there, or why he had taken responsibility for it.
“I overreacted,” he said. “If I had it to do over again, I would step back and take a deep breath.”
On Saturday, Northam made his first official public appearance since he denied being in the photo, attending the funeral for a state trooper killed in a shootout. But he made no public comments upon arriving in Chilhowie, four hours west of the tumult in Richmond.
Moments after Northam’s Friday meeting with his Cabinet, a second woman went public with accusations against Fairfax.