“I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused then and now,” Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, said in a statement Friday evening. “This behavior is not in keeping with who I am today and the values I have fought for throughout my career in the military, in medicine, and in public service. But I want to be clear, I understand how this decision shakes Virginians’ faith in that commitment.”
Northam issued his statement hours after the photograph, which was included on his 1984 medical school yearbook page and appeared alongside other pictures of Northam, became public. Neither person in the black-and-white photograph was identified, and Northam, who was elected Virginia’s governor in 2017, did not confirm which costume he had worn.
He faced intensifying bipartisan pressure Friday night to step down, including calls from three Democratic presidential candidates: Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio. But Northam suggested that he would try to remain in office.
“It doesn’t matter if he is a Republican or a Democrat,” Castro said. “This behavior was racist and unconscionable. Governor Northam should resign.”
Virginia’s two Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, issued simultaneous statements urging him to reflect on how to move forward.
Derrick Johnson, NAACP president, also called on Northam to resign, saying on Twitter: “Black face in any manner is always racist and never okay.”
Some Virginia Democrats, though, defended Northam and said he should not quit.
“The picture was in extremely poor taste, no question about that, but his life since then has been anything but,” said Richard Saslaw, the Democratic leader of the Virginia Senate. “He’s had a career of helping people of all races.”
But, Saslaw said, alluding to the members of the state Legislature, "Which of the 140 of us would want to have revealed what we were doing in our early to mid-20s?”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.