GOP Alabama Gov Apologizes For Wearing Blackface

The Montgomery Advertiser reports:

Gov. Kay Ivey on Thursday issued an apology for appearing in a racist sketch during her time as an undergraduate at Auburn University in the 1960s. Audio surfaced of a 1967 interview given by Ivey and her then-fiancee, Ben LaRavia, in which LaRavia recalled a party at Auburn’s Baptist Student Union. Ivey participated in at least one sketch at the party, where LaRavia said she wore blackface.

“She had on a blue coveralls, she had put some black paint all over her face, and we were acting out this skit called Cigar Butts,” LaRavia said in the interview, which the governor’s office released with Ivey’s statement. “I could not go into a lengthy explanation, but to say the least, I think this skit, it did not require a lot of talent, as far as verbal talent. But it did require a lot of physical acting, such as crawling on the floor looking for cigar butts and things like this.”

Kay Ivey’s first campaign ad was a defense of Confederate monuments calling majority-black cities trying to remove them “politically correct nonsense,” but one line rings true.

“We can’t change or erase our history, she said.”

No, you can’t, governor.https://t.co/Kmy2JoJhoK

— Kyle Whitmire (@WarOnDumb) August 29, 2019

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said she doesn’t “recall ever dressing up in overalls or in blackface” but acknowledges her participation in a racist skit when she was a college senior https://t.co/O1PTkX2Ibk

— Nolan D. McCaskill (@NolanDMcCaskill) August 29, 2019

Gov. Kay Ivey released this video statement today about a 52-year-old interview which references her performing a skit in blackface during her time at Auburn University.

More: https://t.co/8Er031kcq3 pic.twitter.com/BbTCauOHR0

— Reckon (@reckonalabama) August 29, 2019