Gathered on the campus of Virginia’s oldest historically black college, black leaders on Thursday escalated calls for Gov. Ralph Northam to resign.
Local, state and national officials converged on Virginia Union University’s weekly chapel service to respond to Northam’s use of blackface in 1984 at a dance contest, an accusation of sexual assault against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, and an admittance Wednesday from Attorney General Mark Herring that he, too, had worn blackface at a college party.
“It’s not by chance that God pulled back the covers in Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy,” said Del. Delores McQuinn, a Richmond Democrat who is a member of the Legislative Black Caucus. “We must acknowledge it. The only way we can get beyond it is to acknowledge.”
The revelations, during Black History Month and in the year marking the 400th anniversary of enslaved Africans’ forced arrival to Virginia, landed the state at the epicenter of U.S. race relations, drawing prominent civil rights activist and television personality Al Sharpton to Virginia Union. Sharpton demanded that Northam and Herring resign before a packed Allix B. James Chapel in Coburn Hall.
“If you sin, you must pay for the sin,” Sharpton said. “Blackface represents a deeper problem where people felt they could dehumanize and humiliate people based on their inferiority.
“When we’re reacting to blackface, we’re not reacting to the act. We’re reacting to what the act represents.”
Sharpton did not call for Fairfax to resign, saying instead that both Fairfax and his accuser, Vanessa Tyson, should be heard.
Northam originally apologized for appearing in a photo on his page in his 1984 medical school yearbook that showed one person in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe. He retracted his story the day after, saying it wasn’t him in the photo, but he admitted to a separate instance that same year in which he darkened his face and dressed up like Michael Jackson for a dance contest in Texas.
“Whether you blackfaced in Virginia or blackfaced in San Antonio, you are a blackface user,” Sharpton said. “He’s got to deal with how he dealt with this, and I think that is part of what added insult to injury.”
Sharpton said he hadn’t met with Northam, Fairfax or Herring since the start of the scandals.
The governor isn’t the only elected leader he wants gone. He also called for Herring, who apologized for his blackface use, to step down.
“Forgiveness without a price is not forgiveness — it’s a pass,” Sharpton said.
About 300 people, including students, local officials and community members, attended the chapel service, which got Sharpton’s national weight Tuesday when the 64-year-old reached out to VUU and said he’d be willing to speak, a university spokeswoman said.
Other speakers, mostly pastors, said Northam had lost the trust of the black community.
“He’s not fit to lead,” said Michael Jones, a member of Richmond’s City Council and the pastor of Village of Faith Ministries. “We must stand and demand that this man step down.”
The blackface, speakers said, highlights Virginia’s racist past and increases the need for more recognition of black history.
“We must not let black history and art be overshadowed by blackface,” said VUU President Hakim Lucas.
McQuinn’s bill designating 2019 as the Year of Reconciliation and Civility in Virginia was unanimously approved by the House of Delegates on Monday. It has been referred to the Senate Rules Committee.