Fight Over Toni Morrison Novel Inflames Virginia Governor's Race

ARLINGTON, Va. — In the last days of the choky contention for Virginia governor, the candidates are turning to the unlikeliest of run props: a caller from 1987.

A caller online advertisement released this week by Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate, features a parent who pushed to person Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” banned from her son’s English program 8 years ago, citing the book’s graphic scenes. When that failed, she started an effort that yet became a measure passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly, but that was rejected by erstwhile Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat present moving to triumph backmost his aged job.

“It gave parents a accidental — the enactment to take an alternate for my children,” the Northern Virginia mother, Laura Murphy, says successful the ad. “But past Gov. Terry McAuliffe vetoed it twice. He doesn’t deliberation parents should person a say. He said that. He unopen america out.”

Left unsaid successful the advertisement was that the parent and her hubby are Republican activists, that their lad was a precocious schoolhouse elder taking precocious placement English erstwhile helium work the passages that supposedly gave him nightmares, oregon that helium aboriginal went connected to work concisely successful the White House nether erstwhile President Donald J. Trump and present works for the G.O.P.’s legislature run committee. Also unmentioned was the caller successful question: a Pulitzer Prize-winning fixture of the American literate canon — by a Nobel Prize-winner, nary little — whose harrowing scenes conveyed the horrors of slavery, a taxable with evident humanities resonance successful Virginia.

To Democrats, the Youngkin advertisement was some a throwback to the days of publication banning and a coded insult to 1 of America’s astir celebrated Black authors, aft months of frantic Republican alarms, successful Virginia and nationwide, astir however schoolchildren are being educated astir racism.

Mr. Youngkin and his allies, noting that the advertisement had not mentioned “Beloved” oregon Ms. Morrison, insisted it had simply been intended to showcase what they contended was Mr. McAuliffe’s disregard for the prerogatives of parents successful overseeing their children’s education. The specifics had not been mentioned, they said, due to the fact that they were beside the point.

What was indisputable was that the advertisement — which had not adjacent been tally connected tv — had abruptly fixed some Mr. Youngkin and Mr. McAuliffe a much-needed caller rallying outcry successful an predetermination that is wide expected to hinge connected which of them is much palmy astatine mobilizing their halfway supporters to get to the polls.

There was astir an inevitability to the mode the Virginia governor’s contention was winding down with an statement astir racism.

Four years ago, with Mr. Trump successful the White House and memories of the deadly extremist rally successful Charlottesville, Va., inactive fresh, the Republican nominee, Ed Gillespie, finished his run with a bid of pledges to support the state’s Confederate monuments, a improvement Democrats charged arsenic racist.

This year, Mr. Youngkin is centering his closing messaging connected what helium calls “parents’ rights” — an all-encompassing rubric for blimpish causes similar opposing disguise mandates, vaccine requirements and transgender rights, and stoking fears astir the mode contention is taught successful the schools.

For months, the blimpish media person lavished nationalist attraction connected section events successful suburban Loudoun County, Va., including a intersexual battle lawsuit that revived Republican disapproval of gender-inclusive bath policies successful schools, and the suspension of a carnal acquisition teacher who refused to code transgender students by the pronouns that they identified with. Conservatives person besides falsely claimed that Virginia schools are teaching “critical contention theory,” an precocious world conception that is not portion of schoolroom acquisition successful the state.

Polling indicates that those themes person resonated with blimpish voters successful Virginia.

“I don’t person immoderate school-aged kids, but I’m a large believer that parents surely bash person accidental successful what their kids should learn,” Tom Allen, 64, a retired hose aviator from Herndon, Va., said arsenic helium headed into a assemblage halfway to formed an aboriginal ballot for Mr. Youngkin connected Monday. “I don’t deliberation idiosyncratic should beryllium jamming a governmental sentiment down these small kids’ throats.”

Yet Democrats, too, person discerned an accidental to energize their supporters — by coating Mr. Youngkin, who opposes termination rights, arsenic a menace not conscionable to women’s power implicit their bodies but to the schools’ quality to signifier young minds.

“He’s gone from banning a woman’s close to take to banning books by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author,” President Biden said of the Republican campaigner astatine a rally with Mr. McAuliffe successful Arlington connected Tuesday night.

There, McAuliffe unit members handed retired copies of “Beloved” and different books by Ms. Morrison, on with bookmarks proclaiming that Mr. Youngkin would “ban books successful Virginia schools.” Liberal tv hosts rapidly scheduled interviews with scholars who extolled the value of her work.

“It’s a reminder to Virginia voters however utmost Glenn Youngkin is, contempt going to large lengths to look astatine similar a harmless suburban dad,” said Josh Schwerin, a strategist who worked connected Mr. McAuliffe’s 2013 campaign.

Republicans antagonistic it is the McAuliffe run that is employing divisive culture-war tactics to adjacent retired the race. Mr. Youngkin, they argue, is simply trying to guarantee that parents are informed and person input implicit their children’s curriculum. And Mr. McAuliffe, they note, accepted the enactment of Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring, some of whom were forced to acknowledge that they dressed successful blackface decades agone arsenic students.

“​​The Morrison portion is different distortion, trying to marque it a radical issue,” said George Allen, who served arsenic some politician and a legislator from Virginia. “I don’t deliberation parents person immoderate thought the contention of whoever wrote immoderate book. They deliberation the descriptions are things parents should cognize about.”

Former Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican who successful 2013 signed a instrumentality declaring Virginia parents “have a cardinal close to nonstop the upbringing, acquisition and attraction of their children,” said Mr. Youngkin had tapped into a affluent vein of elector discontent.

“What you person present is simply a Democratic campaigner for politician and a nationalist schoolhouse strategy that says, ‘We don’t hold and we’re not going to supply those rights,’” Mr. McDonnell said. “That’s the takeaway from a fig of parents and I deliberation it’s a precise potent contented that transcends parties.”

“Beloved” tells the communicative of a erstwhile enslaved who killed her 2-year-old girl to spare her the horrors of bondage.

In 2013, Ms. Murphy, who said her son, Blake, told her that the caller gave him nightmares, began lobbying for policies giving parents much power implicit what their children work successful class. At the time, her lad told The Washington Post helium recovered the publication “disgusting and gross” and “hard for maine to handle.”

He went connected to the University of Florida, spent a summertime arsenic a clerk successful the White House and present works arsenic a lawyer for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

After respective years of lobbying by Ms. Murphy and others, the Republican-led General Assembly passed a measure with bipartisan enactment giving parents the close to reappraisal and opt their children retired of “instructional worldly that includes sexually explicit content.” The authorities would person made Virginia the lone authorities to springiness parents that power.

Mr. McAuliffe vetoed it successful 2016 and vetoed a akin measure a twelvemonth later. The effort to override his veto fell abbreviated by 1 vote.

Although the authorities did not explicitly prohibit definite books, arsenic Democrats present contend, opponents warned that the attack could pb to publication banning.

While the effectiveness of Mr. Youngkin’s ads whitethorn not go wide until polls adjacent connected Tuesday, determination has been 1 wide beneficiary of the controversy: As of Wednesday afternoon, Ms. Morrison’s 34-year-old caller was 1 of the apical 50 best-selling books connected Amazon.