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Virginia AG candidate Jay Jones has complicated history on blackface scandal that rocked Democrats
Just the News ^ | October 18, 2025 11:37pm | Jerry Dunleavy

Posted on 10/19/2025 4:35:06 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

Jay Jones gave speech condemning Ralph Northam’s blackface controvery, then campaigned with him.

Democratic Virginia attorney general hopeful Jay Jones gave an impassioned speech on race in 2019 which criticized then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam over wearing blackface — and then Jones embraced and campaigned with the disgraced Democratic governor during his unsuccessful bid to be attorney general in 2021 and again during his current bid in 2025.

The yearbook photo depicting two people, one dressed up in Ku Klux Klan robes and the other in blackface, appeared on Northam’s 1984 yearbook page at Eastern Virginia Medical School and came to light in early February 2019. Northam quickly admitted he was in the photo and apologized, then backtracked saying he’d actually appeared in blackface a different time.

The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, of which Jones was a part, quickly called upon Northam to resign the governorship, and Jones soon gave a fiery speech on the floor of the Virginia House of Delegates where he criticized the use of blackface and argued that the saga was proof that there was a “White Virginia” and a “Black Virginia.”

Jones walks back previous condemnation

In early 2021, Jones would express “remorse” for having called on Northam to step down, and Northam would endorse Jones’s bid to become the Democratic nominee for attorney general a month later. Jones would lead efforts to recruit Jones to run again in 2025 and Jones would again tout Northam’s endorsement this year.

During his first bid to become Virginia attorney general, Jones promoted legislative efforts to divest from the police, pull cops from schools, end qualified immunity for law enforcement, and abolish cash bail. As he centered his unsuccessful 2021 Democratic primary run on police reform and race, he repeatedly invoked...

(Excerpt) Read more at justthenews.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: abigailspanberger; democrats; jayjones; virginia; winsomeearlesears

1 posted on 10/19/2025 4:35:06 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

It must be so easy when one simply has no integrity at all


2 posted on 10/19/2025 4:51:32 PM PDT by j.havenfarm (24 years on Free Republic, 12/10/24! More than 10,500 replies and still not shutting up!)
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