Virginia governor apologizes for racist yearbook photo

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Friday apologized after admitting he is one of two people in a decades-old yearbook photo wearing blackface and Ku Klux Klan robes during his time in medical school.

“Earlier today, a website published a photograph of me from my 1984 medical school yearbook in a costume that is clearly racist and offensive,” Northam said in statement. “I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused then and now.”

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Northam added that it will “take time and serious effort to heal the damage this conduct has caused.”

The Virginia Republican Party has called on the governor to resign. Northam’s statement does not address which of the two men he is in photo on his half-page in the 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook.

The news of the yearbook photos was initially reported by the conservative website Big League Politics, which was founded by former Breitbart reporter Patrick Howley and was subsequently confirmed by the Virginian-Pilot and other news outlets.

The Virginia Republican Party had called on the governor to resign if he was one of two men in the photo.

The progressive organization MoveOn.org and Guy Cecil, president of the liberal Priorities USA Super PAC, have both called on Northam to step down.

“If @RalphNortham is one of the two people pictured in the highly disturbing, horrific photo wearing either blackface or a KKK hood – or if he selected or approved of its use on his yearbook page — he should immediately resign,” MoveOn.org wrote on its Twitter account. “There are no excuses for such a racist display.”

“What Ralph Northam did was unforgivable. Given his statements on the right to life coupled with the most recent revelations, he has lost the moral authority to continue to govern and should resign immediately,” Cecil wrote.

Northam this week was criticized by Republican lawmakers for his comments about a proposed bill that would loosen restrictions on women seeking to have abortions in their third trimester. The governor’s office claimed his comments were taken out of context.