In an interaction described as “beyond inappropriate” by a young participant, the first lady of Virginia distributed pieces of cotton to young legislative pages and discussed how slaves were once forced to pick cotton. The interaction happened during a meeting at the governor’s mansion in Richmond last week.
On Feb. 21, Virginia’s first couple, Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam and Pamela Northam, greeted the teenage pages just days before the legislative session concluded, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. The pages briefly met with the governor and posed for photographs before being led out to the mansion’s gardens by the first lady.
From there, they entered a cottage next to the garden and the first lady discussed its historical significance, according to the letter sent by the page to Virginia’s first lady.
“When in the cottage house you were speaking about cotton, and how the slaves had to pick it,” the letter says. “There are only three Black pages in the page class of 2019. When you went to hand out the cotton you handed it straight to another African American page, then you proceeded to hand it to me, I did not take it. The other page took the cotton, but it made her very uncomfortable. I will give you the benefit of the doubt, because you gave it to some other pages.
“But you followed this up by asking: ‘Can you imagine being an enslaved person, and having to pick this all day?'”
“The comments and just the way you carried yourself during this time was beyond inappropriate, especially considering recent events with the Governor,” wrote the young page, whose name is being withheld because the page is a minor. “From the time we walked into the mansion to the time in the cottage house, I did not receive a welcoming vibe.”
The letter writer concluded by saying, “I hope this was a learning experience for everyone involved, and that no one else is subjected to this. I hope to hear back from you soon!”
A spokeswoman for the governor confirmed the governor and first lady met last week with the “hundreds” of young pages who worked for the House of Delegates and state Senate this year. The pages move to Richmond to serve as pages during the six-week legislative session.
Pamela Northam said in a statement to CBS News that she has given “the same educational tour to Executive Mansion visitors over the last few months and used a variety of artifacts and agricultural crops.” Her intent, she said, was to illustrate “a painful period of Virginia history.”
She explained that she began last year to tell the “full story” of the governor’s mansion, including the Historic Kitchen. “I believe it does a disservice to Virginians to omit the stories of the enslaved people who lived and worked there — that’s why I have been engaged in an effort to thoughtfully and honestly share this important story since I arrived in Richmond,” she wrote.
“I regret that I have upset anyone,” she wrote. She went on to say that she’s still committed to chronicling the history of the Historic Kitchen, and “will continue to engage historians and experts on the best way to do so in the future.”
Northam’s husband has been dealing with his own controversy, resisting calls to step down after a racist photo on his medical school yearbook surfaced earlier this month and he admitted to darkening his face on a single occasion in 1984. In the weeks since, the first couple has cancelled appearances in Virginia and Washington after the governor rescinded an apology and tried explaining how he hoped to determine how the photo ended up on his yearbook page.
from Top Viral News Blog https://ift.tt/2NwW08G
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