Northam, who apologized Friday night, was increasingly isolated, but in phone calls Saturday morning he said he had no recollection of the yearbook image of two men, one in blackface and the other in Ku Klux Klan robes. Late Saturday morning, his office announced that he would provide a statement to the news media at 2:30 p.m.
In addition to calling state Democratic officials, Northam has been calling former classmates at Eastern Virginia Medical School in an effort to determine more information about the picture — and to survive a crisis that is threatening his year-old governorship.
With the governor and his top advisers gathered in the executive residence next to the state Capitol in Richmond, the Democrat familiar with Northam’s calls said the governor was determined to prove it was not him in the photograph and was even considering using facial recognition software. The governor, this Democrat said, wanted to take responsibility Friday night, which was why he apologized for appearing in the picture without acknowledging which person he was in the image.
But most Virginia Democratic leaders said privately that he would still have little choice but to quit because he had lost support from nearly all his allies in the state Capitol. On Friday, the state Legislative Black Caucus and both the House and Senate Democratic caucuses called on him to step down.
At first, the black caucus, a strong ally of Northam, who was elected in 2017, held off. But after an emotional meeting with the governor Friday evening, the caucus said in a statement, “It is clear he can no longer effectively serve as governor.”
The statement prompted others to call for resignation. Among them were former Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Mayor Levar Stoney of Richmond, both longtime allies of the governor, who spoke with him by phone before issuing their statements.
If he steps down, Northam would be the first Virginia governor to resign since at least the Civil War. Under the Virginia Constitution, Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax, a Democrat and the second black person to be elected to statewide office in Virginia, would assume the governorship.
Northam’s overnight political implosion began with the surfacing of a photograph from 1984 in his Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook, showing Northam and another man, one in blackface and the other in white Ku Klux Klan robes. The governor, in issuing his apology, did not say which costume he had worn, but offered his “absolute commitment to living up to the expectations Virginians set for me when they elected me to be their governor.”
With African-American voters a crucial constituency for national Democrats, many of the announced and likely 2020 presidential candidates called for Northam’s exit. On Friday, they included Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.
By Saturday, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Vice President Joe Biden added their voices.
“There is no place for racism in America,” Biden tweeted. “Governor Northam has lost all moral authority and should resign immediately, Justin Fairfax is the leader Virginia needs now.”
Other official or potential Democratic candidates who called for Northam’s resignation included Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio; Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; and Julián Castro, the former housing secretary and former mayor of San Antonio.
The controversy was the latest agony over race to befall Virginia, a state that in modern times often seemed to have moved beyond its 400 years of slavery and a 20th-century embrace of segregation, only to be painfully reminded that the past isn’t always past.
Fairfax stepped off the rostrum of the state Senate last month to protest lawmakers honoring Robert E. Lee. While running for governor, Northam learned his ancestors had been slave owners. “My family’s complicated story is similar to Virginia’s complex history,” he told The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
And in 2017, white supremacists carrying torches marched in Charlottesville, prompting President Donald Trump to say there were “fine people” on both sides.
Some Democrats initially expressed optimism that Northam could remain governor. By nightfall, though, there was mounting certainty that the costume picture, as well as the surfacing of an earlier yearbook that revealed that Northam was nicknamed “Coonman,” a racial slur, as an undergraduate, would leave Northam crippled.
“Virginia has a particularly sordid history with racism from the first enslaved Africans on our shores, to the capital of the Confederacy to massive resistance to the struggles African-American Virginians face today,” Rep. A. Donald McEachin, D-Va., said in a statement Friday.
“In light of that stain on our Commonwealth and the work that still needs to be done, I ask the governor to step aside,” McEachin, who represents Richmond, added. “While I acknowledge his efforts on behalf of all Virginians and the good he has done as a senator, as our lieutenant governor and now as governor, Virginians have too much to overcome and too much healing yet in front of us.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.