GOP Zings Missouri Governor

Furious over accusations of racism leveled at Sen. John Ashcroft, Missouri Republicans contend that a 39-year-old newspaper photograph of Gov. Mel Carnahan in blackface shows Carnahan is not the progressive Democrat he claims to be.

The 1960 photo unearthed by the state GOP shows Carnahan, who is challenging Ashcroft for his Senate seat in 2000, as part of a white quartet wearing black makeup in a minstrel show.

The race issue emerged after Ashcroft successfully led efforts in the Senate on Oct. 5 to reject the nomination of Ronnie White, the first black member of the Missouri Supreme Court, to a federal judgeship.

White's supporters say race was a factor, while Ashcroft maintains his concern was White's fitness for office, mainly his record in death penalty cases.

Research turned up the photo in the Rolla Daily News, the governor's hometown paper, according to Missouri GOP executive director John Hancock.

A glossy print of the photograph and a copy of the clipping dated Oct. 12, 1960, were provided to the Associated Press by a Republican source on condition of anonymity. It shows Carnahan, then 26; his brother, Bob; and two other men performing at a Kiwanis Club fund-raiser.

Carnahan released a statement today, apologizing for what he called "my insensitivity of 39 years ago."

The statement also said, "John Ashcroft has reached back almost four decades to try to find something to imply that I might harbor racist attitudes or would knowingly polarize our state.

"Senator Ashcroft's innuendoes notwithstanding, I'm proud of my long public record of fighting racial injustice, a public record that began almost four decades ago and continues through today."

Carnahan said minstrel shows were offensive and "just plain wrong."

"Nonetheless, 40 years ago, these shows were far too common," the statement said. "In those days, most white Americans even many of us who support the cause of civil rights failed to recognize the offensive nature of these performances."

Hancock denied a hand in the distribution of the picture. "A lot of people know about it," he said. "I'm guessing somebody might have had enough. I've had it e-mailed to me. It's out on the Internet. It's a shocking photo."

"I know a little bit about it, because I'm a ragtime pianist and a historian of that whole era," he said. "Minstrelsy isn't lighthearted. It's one of the most degrading, derogatory mockeries of an entire race of people that has ever existed."

Roy Temple, Carnahan's campaign adviser and executive director of the Missouri Democratic Party, said the picture represents the last time such a show was performed for the Kiwanis Club. At the urging of Carnahan's brother, he said, the civic service group in 1961 abandoned the minstrel performance in favor of a variety show.

By that time, Carnahan's father had becme the first U.S. ambassador to the new African nation of Sierra Leone.

Racial sensitivity in Missouri has progressed vastly since 1960, Temple said. "To put it in context, there were people like Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope doing these things in the major entertainment media," he said.

"John Ashcroft can't defend what he did to Ronnie White, so he's trying to attack Mel Carnahan," Temple added.

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