Published:
February 4, 2019
"The revelation that Virginia's Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam appeared either in blackface or dressed in the hooded robe and uniform of a Ku Klux Klansman in his 1984 medical school yearbook, coming at the start of Black History Month, has produced national controversy and calls for the governor's resignation by Democrats and Republicans," writes LBJ School Professor Peniel Joseph.
"Gov. Northam's actions as a young man are both reprehensible and understandable given the nation's long-standing and powerful refusal to come to grips with the history of racial slavery and the subsequent 100-year epic of Jim Crow racial segregation."
Read more of Joseph's perspective on the Northam story.