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From left: Attorney General Mark Herring, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, Gov. Ralph Northam and family members at the Jan. 13 inauguration. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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The scene on inauguration day for Gov. Ralph Northam at the Virginia State Capitol (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Ralph Northam becomes Virginia's 73rd governor. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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A crowd estimated at around 4,000 people filled grandstands in Richmond’s Capitol Square. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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The Corps of Cadets from VMI, Gov. Ralph Northam's alma mater, participate in the inaugural parade. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Members of Virginia's Indian tribes at the inaugural celebration. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Gov. Ralph Northam joins attendees in saying the Pledge of Allegiance at his inauguration. (Photo by Jay Paul)
More than a dozen current and former Virginia governors, senators and House of Delegates members on both sides of the aisle braved the freezing cold and overcast skies for Ralph Northam’s inauguration Saturday at the State Capitol. Also present (minus the heated seats), were more than a thousand members of the public — and among them: millennials.
(Well, one millennial did have a heated seat on the Capitol steps, but that was because he was also being sworn in to office. At age 38, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax — the second African-American to hold office after L. Douglas Wilder — could be considered a millennial, too.)
The latter age group had a lot of potential to swing the off-year November election, and if the heaping margin of blue in college-town voting districts is any indication, they showed up and showed out. And on Saturday, many of the volunteers strutting back and forth between the crowds, lines and various tents fell into the millennial category.
Madeleine Lohr, a junior mathematics and data analytics student at Hollins University, started as an intern with the Democratic Party of Virginia after the primary last summer. Lohr says working for the campaign, and later, the inauguration, was important because the politics were personal.
“I decided to volunteer for Gov. Northam’s campaign because of his dedication to women’s rights,” Lohr says. “As a student at Hollins University, a small liberal arts school for women, this is incredibly important to me.”
According to Lohr, the governor practices what he preaches. She says this month, the majority of her internship supervisors are women, and about 60 percent of the inauguration committee was, too.
“It has been incredibly inspiring to stand behind him — especially today as he was sworn in to office and I can’t wait to see how he uses the next four years,” Lohr says.
Northam touched on the importance of inclusion for all Virginians during his inauguration speech, which began with an anecdote about his father teaching him how to navigate the waters in his Norfolk hometown by relying on his compass. This anecdote guided the remainder of his speech on “the way forward” for Virginia, which was on a macro-scale aimed at inclusion for all citizens.
For Laura Bryant, a senior studying political science at VCU, inclusion and women’s rights were important to her vote, too.
“Northam has been such a champion for women’s rights, so I’m excited to see him to continue that,” Bryant says.
She added the inauguration was important to her because it signified that voters believed in the progress Northam’s predecessor, Terry McAuliffe, had made toward equalizing the playing field for all Virginians.
According to a Wilder School poll released this month, the "Trump effect" was cited as the reason for a 22 percent plurality of voters taking to the polls in the off-year election — a number that extended to the younger cohort of voters and volunteers.
“I think millennials were fed up with the current administration and realized the best way to stop it from affecting Virginia was to vote and volunteer,” Bryant says.
The next most-important issue respondents cited in the Wilder School poll — at 18 percent — was health care. Northam, who is a pediatric neurologist, vigorously campaigned on and addressed the importance of access to health care on Saturday.
“We all have a moral compass deep in our hearts, and it’s time to summon it again, because we have a lot of work to do,” Northam said. “We’re going in the wrong direction on health care in Virginia and America. More people need coverage, not less. It is past time for us to step forward together and expand Medicaid to nearly 400,000 Virginians who need access to care,” he said to roaring applause from the audience.
Perhaps the most humbling moment during the ceremony came toward the end of the new governor’s speech. Instead of choosing a moment during his medical career to boast about, Northam instead relayed a moment he was not so proud of.
He explained to the audience how a young couple had come to him for help with their son, who had severe autism. After examining the boy, Northam says he saw it was a “tough” case, and explained there was nothing he could do to alter the boy’s condition or improve his quality of life.
The crowd, listening to Northam’s story, had become quiet.
More than a decade later, Northam continued, the mother approached him at the grocery story and asked if he knew why they had never returned for a follow-up. Northam says he told her he didn’t.
“She looked me in the eye and said, ‘Dr. Northam, when you said you couldn’t help us, you took away our hope,’ ” the audience sitting before the new governor was silent. “I can still hear her words to this day,” he continued. “From that moment on, I have recognized the incredible power of hope and my responsibility to preserve it in the people I serve.”
And then the 73rd governor of Virginia offered his constituents his commitment to pursue hope for a better tomorrow — "the way forward," as his inauguration is themed — every day while in office, to roaring applause.
“This country is once again looking to Virginia to lead the way,” he said. “Let’s get to work.”
