Alabama Gov. Kay claimed she did not remember the specifics of the skit. | Vasha Hunt/AP Photo politico Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey apologizes for participating in blackface skit in college

Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama apologized on Thursday for participating in a racist skit that involved blackface when she was a college student.

In a statement Thursday afternoon, Ivey, a Republican, said she was made aware of a taped interview that she and her then-fiance, Ben LaRavia, gave to an Auburn University student radio station when she was a student there. She said she did not remember the specifics of the skit.


“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,” Ivey said. “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.”

But Ivey, 74, did acknowledge that it happened and apologized.

“As such, I fully acknowledge — with genuine remorse — my participation in a skit like that back when I was a senior in college,” she said in the statement. “While some may attempt to excuse this as acceptable behavior for a college student during the mid-1960s, that is not who I am today, and it is not what my Administration represents all these years later. 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. We have come a long way, for sure, but we still have a long way to go.”

According to AL.com , Ivey has been reaching out to state lawmakers to apologize for the skit. Photos of Ivey’s sorority sisters in the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority wearing blackface came out earlier in the year .

Ahead of Ivey‘s public statement, her chief of staff distributed a memo to the Alabama congressional delegation with audio of the tape attached. The memo, obtained by POLITICO, said Ivey felt “profound regret“ over the episode.

“Once she was made aware of this audio tape, the Governor instructed us to make this all public as soon as we could confirm all the facts," Jo Bonner, Ivey‘s chief of staff, wrote in the memo.

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Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) later told POLITICO: “I appreciate the way Governor Ivey has addressed this in a straightforward manner. Accepting responsibility while apologizing and expressing remorse are important ways to move beyond our mistakes.“

“Governor Ivey now has a unique opportunity to do more than any Alabama governor in recent memory to correct the injustices that still exist in our society,” he added. “I hope she will seize it.”

Ivey’s admission is the latest in an ongoing string of lawmakers conceding such episodes in their past. Earlier in the year, Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, a Democrat, acknowledged that he wore blackface after a photo of two men surfaced in Northam’s medical school yearbook. One of the men wore blackface and the other was in Ku Klux Klan robes.

The scandal caused national Democrats and Republicans to denounce Northam, 59, who apologized but did not resign. He is still in office.

Around the same time of the Northam scandal, a review of copies of the Auburn yearbook by the Plainsman student newspaper found multiple racist photos and blackface depictions, including on the page of Ivey‘s sorority.

Ivey is one of the more popular sitting governors in the country. A recent Morning Consult survey of every governor’s approval rating found 57 percent of respondents approved of her job performance, while 29 percent disapproved.

In May, Ivey landed in the national spotlight for signing the most restrictive abortion law in the nation. The law prohibits abortion at any time during pregnancy, including in cases of rape and incest. Planned Parenthood has vowed to challenge the ban in court.

After the 2017 special election for U.S. Senate, which Jones won, Democrats in Alabama hoped they could win another statewide race in Ivey’s reelection bid. But she cleanly defeated Mayor Walt Maddox of Tuscaloosa with almost 60 percent of the vote to Maddox’s 40 percent.

Ivey became took office in 2017 after Gov. Robert Bentley stepped down. After Sen. Jeff Sessions resigned from his office that year to serve as attorney general in the Trump administration, Ivey appointed Alabama’s attorney general at the time, Luther Strange, to finish out Sessions’ term. Strange was defeated in the Republican primary for Senate by former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who would go on to lose to Jones in a historic upset.

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