Richmond, Virginia, US
AP
Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr, apologised Monday for a tweet that included a racist photo that appeared on Governor Ralph Northam’s medical school yearbook page decades ago.
“After listening to African American LU leaders and alumni over the past week and hearing their concerns, I understand that by tweeting an image to remind all of the governor’s racist past I actually refreshed the trauma that image had caused and offended some by using the image to make a political point,” he tweeted Monday.
Falwell, a stalwart backer of President Donald Trump and the son of the late evangelist the Rev Jerry Falwell, said he had deleted the tweet and apologised “for any hurt my effort caused, especially within the African American community.”
Liberty University president Jerry Falwell, Jr, poses during an interview in his offices at the school in Lynchburg, Virginia, on 16th November, 2016. Falwell, Jr, apologised on Monday, 8th June, for a tweet that included a racist photo that appeared on Governor Ralph Northam’s medical school yearbook page decades ago, saying his effort to make a political point had been offensive. PICTURE: AP Photo/Steve Helber/File photo.
Falwell’s apology comes after nearly three dozen black alumni denounced him last week, writing in a letter that his rhetoric has “repeatedly violated and misrepresented” Christian principles. They said they would stop urging students to attend Liberty, would no longer donate to the university and would urge fellow people of faith to avoid speaking at the school unless Falwell changes his behaviour or steps aside.
An online instructor for Liberty, a black pastor who also teaches at Ithaca College, also announced his resignation online in response to the tweet.
In late May, Falwell tweeted his opposition to a mask mandate from Governor Ralph Northam in order to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Falwell tweeted that he was “adamantly opposed” to the mask mandate “until I decided to design my own.” With it, he posted a picture of a mask bearing a racist photo that appeared on Northam’s medical yearbook page and – when made public last year – sparked a scandal that nearly forced him from office. The photo showed a person in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan costume.
Falwell told The Associated Press at the time that his comment about the blackface scandal was made in defense of Liberty students, including minorities, who would be affected by tuition assistance cuts in a budget passed by the state legislature and signed by Northam.
He initially shrugged off the African American alumnis’ concerns, saying in an interview last week that “I don’t blame” them for speaking out but that they “don’t know all that context” he was attempting to share in the now-deleted tweet. He also defended his involvement in politics as in line with Christian values, saying that Jesus criticized “the establishment of his day.”
Falwell’s reversal and apology also come as a growing number of evangelical groups align with peaceful demonstrations seeking action on racial justice in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Mitt Romney of Utah became the first GOP senator to participate a march against police brutality on Sunday, joining a group of nonpartisan marchers, among them evangelical Christians.
