The head of the NAACP said Sunday he doesn’t believe Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam can stay in office after a racist photo emerged in one of his old medical school yearbooks.
Asked during an interview on ABC’s “This Week” if the Democrat has a way to “survive,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said “I don’t.”
Northam apologized on Friday when the racist photo from his 1984 medical school yearbook surfaced, showing a man in blackface and a man wearing Ku Klux Klan robes and hood. He changed his tune on Saturday, saying at a press conference he didn’t think he was in the photo, but acknowledged that he did wear blackface that same year to dress up as singer Michael Jackson for a dance competition.
Northam has so far refused to resign.
Johnson, who has joined Democrats across the country calling on Northam to step down, took issue with Northam waiting until now to address the issue.
“He finished medical school, received a yearbook with a racist picture on his page in the yearbook, and he has said nothing about it,” Johnson said. “He acknowledged that that was apart of something that was taking place during that period of time and whether he actively participated or passively was present, he not one time up until this point acknowledged that this took place, objected to that behavior, or stated that, you know, ‘I had a different upbringing and I was a part of a Southern culture that embraced this racist, vile behavior, and I’m a changed man now and, as a result of that, I denounce that activity, I denounce my participation, and we’re going to move forward with public policy to remedy some of these issues.”
Johnson said it “absolutely” would have made a difference if Northam had come out during the 2017 gubernatorial campaign to disclose the “errors of his past.”
