Photos Show New York Congressman in Blackface as Michael Jackson

Representative Mike Lawler of New York wore blackface as part of a Halloween costume when he was a college student almost two decades ago, according to photographs recently obtained by The New York Times.

The images, taken around October 2006, show a 20-year-old Mr. Lawler at a campus social gathering dressed as Michael Jackson. He is wearing a black shirt and a red jacket and, in one photo, is striking a signature Jackson dance pose. His face has also been visibly darkened.

Mr. Lawler, a rising Republican standout from the Hudson Valley, has frequently described himself as an ardent Jackson fan. But the photos are the first known instance of Mr. Lawler, who is white, dressing as the Black musician by wearing blackface, a practice that has long been considered racist.

The images may come into play in Mr. Lawler’s fight for re-election this fall against Mondaire Jones, a Black former congressman, in a suburban swing seat. The Republican is also eyeing a run for governor in 2026.

Mr. Lawler, 38, did not dispute the photos’ authenticity. In a statement, he said that the costume was intended to be “truly the sincerest form of flattery, a genuine homage to my musical hero since I was a little kid trying to moonwalk through my mom’s kitchen.”

“The ugly practice of blackface was the furthest thing from my mind,” he said. “Let me be clear, this is not that.”

“I am a student of history and for anyone who takes offense to the photo, I am sorry,” he said, adding: “All you can do is live and learn.”

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In recent years, the governor of Virginia, the prime minister of Canada and other politicians and entertainers have been swept up in scandals involving blackface that helped fuel a reconsideration among white Americans. Some have continued to defend the practice; others have apologized.

The governor of Virginia at the time, Ralph Northam, nearly lost his job in 2019 after a page from his medical school yearbook surfaced that included a photo of men in Ku Klux Klan robes and blackface. Mr. Northam, a Democrat, denied he was in the photo, but disclosed that he used shoe polish to darken his face for a dance contest in Texas in the 1980s to compete as Jackson.

Mr. Lawler’s case took place in New York City nearly two decades after Mr. Northam’s, when he was a sophomore at Manhattan College, a small Catholic college in the Bronx where only 3 percent of students were Black. (The school is now known as Manhattan University.)

Mr. Lawler was named his class’s valedictorian in 2009. He was also well known on campus for his affinity for Jackson, one of the era’s leading cultural figures.

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In one of the images, Mr. Lawler is dressed in a jacket similar to the one Jackson wears in the “Thriller” music video. He is twisted into a dance move popularized by the star.

In another, he poses with two other students in unrelated costumes.

In both pictures, Mr. Lawler’s skin is visibly darkened. A person familiar with the costume, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, recalled that Mr. Lawler had used bronzer that he borrowed from female classmates. The congressman gave the same account.

The photos now threaten to complicate Mr. Lawler’s ascent. He burst onto the national stage in 2022 by defeating Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of House Democrats’ national campaign operation, in a left-leaning district.

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