WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The governor of the U.S. state of Virginia said Friday that he will not resign in the wake of a blackface scandal, according to several news outlets.
Governor Ralph Northam has been under fire since the surfacing last week of a photo on his medical school yearbook page featuring a person wearing blackface and a person wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit standing side by side.
The photo, dating back to 1984, sparked widespread outrage and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for the Democratic governor to step down.
Northam had apologized and admitted he was one of the two individuals pictured, though he didn't say which.
"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," Northam said in a statement last Friday.
But he later walked back his earlier admission, claiming he wasn't in the photo. He did, however, revealed that he had worn blackface in a separate incident as part of a Michael Jackson costume in the 1980s.
Northam has signaled that he has no plan to resign.
"I intend to continue doing the business of Virginia," he told a press conference last week, adding that resigning would be the easier way out.
"I could spare myself from the difficult path that lies ahead. I could avoid an honest conversation about harmful actions from my past," he said. "I cannot in good conscience choose the path that would be easier for me in an effort to duck my responsibility to reconcile."
Virginia has entered a political crisis as the controversy has also brought about revelations about two of Northam's potential successors.
Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who would replace Northam should the governor resign, has had multiple allegations of sexual assault made against him in recent days.
Meanwhile, state Attorney General Mark Herring, who would be the third in line for the governorship after Fairfax, admitted this week to wearing blackface at a party decades ago.
Northam, 59, won the governorship against Republican nominee Ed Gillespie in the 2017 election before serving as the state's lieutenant governor for several years.
A physician by occupation, he was an officer in the U.S. Army Medical Corps from 1984 to 1992.
