Virginia Lt. Gov. Fairfax: 'We need leaders with the ability to unite us'
WASHINGTON (AP) - Virginia's lieutenant governor says the state needs leaders who can unite people and "help us rise to the better angels of our nature."
If Gov. Ralph Northam were to resign, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax would become the second African-American governor of Virginia.
In his statement issued Saturday, Fairfax doesn't call for Northam to resign because of racist photos on Northam's 1984 yearbook profile page.
But Fairfax does say that he "cannot condone actions from (the governor's) past" that at least "suggest a comfort with Virginia's darker history of white supremacy, racial stereotyping and intimidation."
Northam said Saturday that he hadn't seen photos of one person in blackface and another wearing a Ku Klux Klan until someone showed them to him Friday. He says he won't resign despite widespread calls that he step aside and let Fairfax lead Virginia.