The black-faced person I estimate at 3 inches (the distance from my mouth to my eyes) taller than the KKK person. In 1984, Northam was 25. He would have been 6’ 1” by that age. However, I think the photo was taken when he was in high school, judging from the plaid pants which were in fashion in the 1970s. He may have been shorter than the 6’ 1” then. He graduated from Onancock High School—a predominate black high school—in 1977. Perhaps the black face person is actually a black fellow high school student participating in a joke photo. Blacks are known to be quite tall in their teen years. Northam played high school baseball and basketball. He may have been on Northam’s basketball or baseball team. Check the basketball and baseball team photos.
This is just my theory, for people to think about.
You have a lot of details for not knowing the pic is from med school.
Ralph Northam’s Onancock High School basketball team photo here:
https://www.classmates.com/siteui/yearbooks/4182831803?page=71
I took a screen shot of the page and was able to copy just the men’s basketball team (there is a small dialog box on the bottom of the photo to do it). Then I copied it into Microsoft Paint and got the image so I could enlarge it. (I would post in photo bucket, if I knew how, but I hope someone else would do it).
If any of the members of Northam’s basket ball team were actually the “black face” person in the photo, I would say it was the person in the front row, second one to our left judging from the head shape. There is one in the back row who fits the height profile: the third one to our right.