Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax compared himself to George Floyd and Emmett Till while discussing the sexual assault allegations against him.
In a Virginia Democratic primary debate on Tuesday night, Fairfax said that his primary opponent, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, in calling for Fairfax to resign following reports of sexual assault allegations, treated him like Floyd, the black Minneapolis man whose May 2020 death after being held under the knee of a white police officer sparked international “Black Lives Matter” protests, and Till, a black 14-year-old who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955.
“The murder of George Floyd was horrific,” said Fairfax, the second black man to be elected to statewide office in Virginia. “He recalls a history in Virginia and in our nation where African Americans — and particularly, African American men — are presumed to be guilty, are treated inhumanely, are given no due process, and have their lives impacted — in some cases, taken away — in an instant.”
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“In the interest of speaking truth to power here,” Fairfax said, “we can’t just talk theoretically about what generally happens. But we have a real-world example, where I was falsely accused in 2019.”
Fairfax referenced an editorial from the Washington Post last year that questioned the veracity of the allegations against him.
College professor Vanessa Tyson accused Fairfax of sexual assault at a hotel during the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Days later, Maryland woman Meredith Watson accused him of rape while they were at Duke University in 2000. Fairfax has said that he did have sexual relations with the women but that they were consensual. The Washington Post, in part, pointed to Fairfax’s assertion that there was a third person present at the Duke encounter who said it was consensual, which Watson refused to address.
“Everyone here on the stage called for my immediate resignation, including Terry McAuliffe,” Fairfax said, naming the governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018 who is now seeking a second term and raising large sums of money for his campaign.
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“He treated me like George Floyd, treated me like Emmett Till. No due process. Immediately assumed my guilt,” Fairfax said. “I have a son and a daughter. I never want my daughter to be assaulted. I don’t want a son to be falsely accused. And yet, this is the real world that we live in.”
The trial on charges against former police officer Derek Chauvin is in its second week.
