Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey issued an apology for wearing blackface at a party more than half-a-century ago.
Ivey acknowledged the 52-year-old incident in a statement she released Thursday afternoon. The statement was prompted by an audio recording from an interview she and her then-fiance Ben LaRavia did following a skit at a Baptist Student Union Party.
In the interview, LaRavia described Ivey as wearing blue coveralls and said that she “had put some black paint all over her face.” The skit was called “cigar butts” and it innovated “a lot of physical acting, such as crawling around on the floor looking for cigar butts and things like this, which certainly got a big reaction out of the audience.”
Ivey’s statement reads in part, “Even after listening to the tape, I sincerely do not recall either the skit, which evidently occurred at a Baptist Student Union party, or the interview itself, both which occurred 52 years ago. Even though Ben is the one on tape remembering the skit — and I still don’t recall ever dressing up in overalls or in blackface‚ I will not deny what is the obvious,” it went on. “As such I full acknowledge — with genuine remorse — my participation in a skit like that.”
“I offer my heartfelt apologies for the pain and embarrassment this causes, and I will do all I can – going forward – to help show the nation that the Alabama of today is a far cry from the Alabama of the 1960s,” it continued. “We have come a long way, for sure, but we still have a long way to go.”
Earlier this year, photos surfaced of Ivey’s sorority pledge class with the sisters wearing blackface. She was not in any of those photos.
This is not the first time this year a governor was caught allegedly wearing blackface in an old photo. A photo of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam from the Eastern Virginia Medical School 1984 yearbook surfaced. The photo depicted one individual wearing a KKK outfit and the other in blackface. After initially denying it was in the photo, Northam later apologized, before only reasserting his innocence.
