By The Associated Press
RICHMOND—Virginia first lady Pam Northam has expressed regret after the mother of an African-American teenager complained that a tour of the governor’s mansion was racially insensitive.
“I regret that I have upset anyone,” Pam Northam said in a statement obtained by ABC News Wednesday. “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.”
State employee Leah Walker made the complaint. Her eighth-grade daughter toured the mansion this month as a part of the Senate page program. Walker says Pam Northam singled out African-American students when passing out cotton and discussing the horrors of slavery.
“I have provided the same educational tour to executive mansion visitors over the last few months and used a variety of artifacts and agricultural crops with the intention of illustrating a painful period of Virginia history,” the first lady’s statement said, according to NBC News.
Northam’s statement comes amid heightened racial tension in Virginia politics. Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring have recently apologized for wearing blackface decades ago. The state’s highest elected black official, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, has compared himself to Jim Crow-era lynching victims after two women accused him of sexual assault.
Northam’s office said the first lady did not single anyone out.
Walker’s account differs from an account of the tour written by her daughter. Her daughter did not explicitly say only African-American pages were singled out by the first lady.
Democratic Sen. Scott Surovell and Republican Sen. Bill Stanley said both their daughters, who were also on the tour, said Northam did not single anyone out.