Governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey, apologizes after the release of the 1967 sound in Blackface

Alabama's governor, Kay Ivey, apologized for her participation in a Blackface skit while she was a student at Auburn University, six months after a photo of The yearbook of her sorority sisters featuring a similar skit resurfaced.

Ivey said Thursday that although she does not remember to dress in blackface, she "will not deny what is obvious".

"As such, I fully recognize – with real remorse – my participation in a skit like this at the time I was senior at the university," she said. said in a statement. "Some may want to claim that this behavior is acceptable to a student in the mid-1960s, but that's not what I am today and what my administration does not represent all these years anymore later. "

Ivey gave an interview to student radio in 1967 with her fiancé at the time, Ben LaRavia, who revealed her role in a black-faced sketch at a Baptist Student Union feast the same year. One can hear LaRavia on the audio describing the routine, which, according to him, does not require "a lot of talent in terms of verbal talent."

"When I look at my fiancé on the other side of the room, I can see her that night," LaRavia said. "She was wearing a blue jumpsuit and she put black paint on her face and we were playing this skit called" Cigar Butts "."

LaRavia said that Ivey, who was at the time vice president of Auburn's student body, was crawling on the ground looking for cigar butts, "which certainly sparked a strong reaction public."

Ivey not only confirmed the authenticity of Thursday's interview, but his office also distributed copies of the recording to the media.

"I sincerely apologize for the pain and embarrassment caused by this situation, and I will do everything in my power to show the nation that Alabama today is far away. from Alabama in the 1960s, "said Ivey. "We have come a long way, that's for sure, but we still have a long way to go."

The Baptist Student Association Party Skit is the second black-faced incident Ivey was linked to during his last year in Auburn.

After resurfacing, the pages of the directory showed earlier this year to Virginia Governor Ralph Northam on a blackface men 's photo and dresses of the Ku Klux Klan, the newspaper' s. Auburn School has reviewed its own directories.

The Auburn Plainsmen reported in February that a page of the Ivey Sorority's 1967 directory, Alpha Gamma Delta, featured a picture of five young white women wearing black masks. and shirts with caricatures of blacks.

Ivey was not on the picture, but appeared on the same page in an article about her position as vice president of the student body. A spokesman for Ivey told the plain guards that the governor was unaware of the page and that Ivey was playing a lesser role in the sorority as she began to focus on d & # 39; Other extracurricular activities on campus.