As he leaves his mansion each day Ralph Northam, the Governor of Virginia, passes a statue of a young black girl commemorating the end of segregation in schools. It is a stark reminder of his state’s racist past.
That past caught up with Mr Northam, a Democrat, this week when his medical college yearbook emerged. His personal page featured a photograph of people in blackface and Ku Klux Klan robes. His attorney general, Mark Herring, also a Democrat, then admitted to having donned blackface too.
The scandal reverberated through the Democratic Party, and America, but both men refused to step down, raising questions over how much race relations in Virginia have really evolved.
Dr David Randolph,…