Alabama Governor Kay Ivey Apologizes For Sporting Blackface

Yet one more Republican governor has been nabbed for as soon as sporting blackface.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey apologized for donning blackface throughout a 1967 faculty skit throughout a Baptists Scholar Union get together, but in addition stated she had no recollection of the incident. 

The 74-year-old Republican responded to the accusations with “heartfelt apologies for the ache and embarrassment” her actions triggered. 

She was a member of the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority at Auburn College on the time when her then-fiance, Ben LaRavis, described her as sporting “a pair of blue coveralls and she or he had put some black paint throughout her face and we have been appearing out this skit known as ‘Cigar Butts.’” 

The recording got here from a 1967 scholar radio interview with each LaRavis and Ivey.  

“Although Ben is the one on tape remembering the skit — and I nonetheless don’t recall ever dressing up in overalls or in blackface — I cannot deny what’s the apparent,” Ivey stated.  

Her apology comes simply six months after a yearbook picture of her sorority sisters placing on an identical skit resurfaced, in accordance with MSN.com. 

Whereas Ivey was not within the picture, a write-up on her place as scholar physique vp was on the identical web page within the yearbook. The governor additionally stated she doesn’t recall something concerning the web page, in accordance with her spokesperson. 

“As such, I full acknowledge — with real regret — my participation in a skit like that again once I was a senior in faculty,” Ivey’s assertion included. “Whereas some could try and excuse this as acceptable conduct for a school scholar in the course of the mid-1960s, that’s not who I’m at this time, and it isn’t what my Administration represents all these years later.”

Though Ivey insisted she didn’t keep in mind the incident her ex-fiance referred to within the scholar radio interview, she did affirm the authenticity of the interview, and her workplace distributed copies of the recording to the media. 

“I supply my heartfelt apologies for the ache and embarrassment this causes, and I’ll do all I can — going ahead — to assist present the nation that the Alabama of at this time is a far cry from the Alabama of the 1960s,” Ivey stated. “We’ve come a good distance, for positive, however we nonetheless have a protracted method to go.” 

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam was additionally outed for sporting blackface in a photograph from his 1984 medical college yearbook, which additionally included somebody dressed as Ku Klux Klan member.

“I’m deeply sorry for the choice I made to look as I did on this picture and for the harm that call triggered then and now,” he stated in a press release, including, “This conduct isn’t in step with who I’m at this time.”