Trail Maids

The Azalea Trail Maids are a group of 50 women who travel throughout the United States representing the city of Mobile, Alabama, its rich heritage and its southern hospitality. The Maids wear extravagantly ruffled dresses with hoop skirts measuring five feet in diameter. The dresses are in pastel shades and designed after the blossoming azaleas that line the streets of Mobile each spring.

Tourists visit Mobile each year to walk the famous Azalea Trail. In the late 1940's, the first Trail Maids began as a group of 10 girls who would greet the tourists and later to travel the country to people who couldn't make it to their city. Trail Maids serve during their senior year in high school.

The Trail Maids have been invited to join the President-Elect Barack Obama's Inauguration parade in Washington DC. Since their invitation, the girls have been working hard to raise money for their trip.

Mobile's Trail Maids received a public apology from Alabama's NAACP president, Edward Vaughn on January 14th, 2009. Vaughn had previously commented that the Maid's dresses reminded him of the "slave era," and that the girls would be a laughing stock of President-Elect Barack Obama's Inaugural parade. Though Vaughn apologized for calling the Maids a laughing stock, he did not retract his comment about their dresses.

The Maids were invited to perform at the Inauguration Day parade by Obama's inaugural committee, which he himself appointed. Although the Trail Maid's costumes are reminiscent of the pre-Civil War Deep South, eight of the 50 Trail Maids are African-American, one is Asian and two are Indian.

• "It would be nice if we could add with them the bands from Tuskegee or Alabama State or Alabama A&M to show at least the African-American side of it since the Civil War movement started here in Alabama," said Edward Vaughn.