State NAACP head: Comments about trail maidens out of context

Ed Vaughn held one phone to his ear Tuesday while another rang nearby.

“It’s been crazy,” said Vaughn, a Dothan resident and president of the Alabama chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “I’m getting beat up pretty bad out there and I didn’t say what they said I said.”

Vaughn said national media reports indicating he wants Alabama’s Azalea Trail Maids kept from marching in the Inaugural Parade next week in Washington are inaccurate.

Vaughn said he believes some publications took a portion of a comment he made last week to the Montgomery Advertiser that changed the meaning of his statement.

In the Thursday, Jan. 8, edition of the Advertiser, Vaughn said he is disappointed no part of the African-American community, such as the marching bands from historically black schools Tuskegee or Alabama State, where chosen to represent Alabama along with the Trail Maids.

Vaughn is then quoted as saying: “I think that, along with the Azalea Trail Maids, would have been a better representation — to show we have all come together as one, and that we are together as a people united.”

Vaughn said he never intended to indicate he thought the Trail Maids should be kept from participating in the parade. He said he has been bombarded with phone calls from media outlets around the country this week.

The Azalea Trail Maids are made up of 50 seniors from Mobile County high schools who adorn themselves in antebellum gowns to celebrate Mobile’s azalea-lined streets — similar to Dothan’s Azalea Queens. According to the Advertiser, eight of Mobile’s maids are black, two are of Indian descent and one is Asian.

Vaughn said he regrets the comments have caused problems for the Trail Maids.

“All I meant was that the image of the antebellum costumes was a drawback, and to balance that out, I thought the state should have a representation of the civil rights movement, because this is where it all started,” Vaughn said.

Vaughn was also quoted as saying the Trail Maids would be a “laughing stock” at the parade.

“I did say that, and I apologize for that,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said it.”