VIrginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s wife handed out cotton to black students during a tour of the governor’s mansion, weeks after a racist photo was found on her husband’s yearbook page.
The parent of a black eighth grade girl wrote to lawmakers Monday that Pam Northam handed out cotton to get the students to “imagine being an enslaved person.” The cotton was given to at least two of the three black students in the party, according to WTVR.
“I regret that I have upset anyone,” Northam said Wednesday. “I am still committed to chronicling the important history of the Historic Kitchen, and will continue to engage historians and experts on the best way to do so in the future.”
Gov. Northam is still facing controversy after his medical school yearbook page from 1984 was discovered to include a photograph of someone in blackface, and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe.
Northam faced calls to step down, but made it clear he would finish out his term and dedicate the next years to fighting for race equity.
Pam Northam issued a statement saying: “I regret that I upset anyone…The Historic Kitchen should be a feature of Executive Mansion tours, and I believe it does a disservice to Virginians to omit the stories of the enslaved people who lived and worked there.”
