RICHMOND, Va. — He offered the first formal apology for this city’s role in the slave trade. He led the effort to add a statue of Arthur Ashe, a Richmond native, to its Monument Avenue. He attended a largely black church and sent his children to racially mixed schools.

During Tim Kaine’s six years in Richmond’s local government, he became known for his commitment to the city’s African-Americans. But there were also stumbles as he began to fashion himself as the centrist conciliator that he is known as today, trying to steer a middle path in a majority-black city drenched in Confederate history.

No one here will forget the giant picture of Robert E. Lee.

It briefly graced a prominent downtown wall in the spring of 1999, setting off an angry backlash from many African-Americans in the city. Within days, it was removed.

Then Southern heritage groups revolted. Soon, Mayor Kaine was putting forward a compromise inside Richmond’s packed City Council chambers: a revised image, this time of a decidedly downcast General Lee in civilian dress after the surrender at Appomattox, that would be part of a series of murals featuring Abraham Lincoln and Powhatan Beaty, a black man who won the Medal of Honor fighting for the Union.