FILE PHOTO: Virginia Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam, Democratic candidate for governor, delivers remarks before introducing former U.S. President Barack Obama to speak at a rally with supporters in Richmond, Virginia, U.S. October 19, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
February 2, 2019
(Reuters) – Virginia Governor Ralph Northam on Saturday resisted mounting pressure from his Democratic party to resign after a photograph surfaced which he said showed him and another person in racist garb at a party decades earlier.
Northam, who took office a year ago, will hold a news conference at 2:30 p.m. ET (1930 GMT) on Saturday and does not plan to resign, U.S. network NBC said, citing a spokesperson for the governor.
He had apologized on Friday, saying he was one of the people shown in the photo, which depicted one person in blackface standing next to another in a Ku Klux Klan costume.
But he also said he would remain in office, and on Saturday Northam reportedly expressed doubt he actually was in the photo, which appeared under his name in his 1984 medical school yearbook.
“He just told me he didn’t think it’s him,” state senator L. Louise Lucas said, according to the Washington Post. “And I said, ‘Ralph, this is a day late and a dollar short. It’s too late.’”
Northam’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Pressure on him from within his party is growing.
“Governor Northam has lost all moral authority and should resign immediately,” former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat weighing a 2020 presidential run, said on Twitter.
(Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
