Virginia Governor the Democrat Ralph Northam, said this Saturday that he does not intend to resign despite the controversy surrounding a racist photo of his 1984 yearbook in which a man with a face painted in black and another dressed as a Ku Klux Klan member.
Northam apologized on Friday for that photo, in which he admitted that he himself appeared; but today he changed his strategy and assured that he is not one of the two people that appear in that photo.
“In the hours that have followed the statements I made yesterday, I have reflected with my family and with my friends back then and I can affirm that my conclusion is that I am not the person in that picture,” Northan said at a press conference.
The governor explained that on seeing the photo on Friday he felt “surprise and fright”, so he decided to apologize automatically; but then he spoke with his classmates who helped him to remember, so that he can now affirm that he is not “any” of the people in the photo.
However, Northam acknowledged that at first he had thought it could be him because, in 1984, he won a dance contest in San Antonio, where he painted his face black with the shoe polish to disguise himself as Michael Jackson.
In this regard, the governor said he wanted to apologize for that episode and for having painted his face black, something that in the United States
The picture appeared on Friday on a website of conservative trend and caused a political earthquake throughout the country but especially in Virginia, which still has open wounds of a racist past.
With this photo coming to light, the calls to present his resignation among all political sectors has not been short, from the National Association for the Advancement of People of Color (NAACP) or the Republican Party of
Northam, however, reiterated on Saturday his intention to finish his term, which runs until January 2022.
Should Northam succumb to petitions for his resignation, he would be replaced by the current lieutenant governor, African-American Justin Fairfax.
