AMBROSE HEADEN

Ambrose Headen was born in 1822 in Chatham County, North Carolina. He spent his first sixteen years enslaved in North Carolina and was separated from that community by a move to Alabama where he was enslaved for an additional twenty-seven years. As a teenager, he began to learn carpentry. [1] Through this trade, he met William Savery in 1853 when, as enslaved men, they constructed the Baptist Academy that later became the genesis of Talladega College. [2]

While enslaved, he married Elfira Headen, and they had four children: Ambrose Jr., Nannie, Kate Lillian Headen Cunningham, and an unknown fourth child. Once emancipated, his primary goal was to educate his children. In his narrative recorded by the American Missionary Association, he recalled his enslaver asking to leave Nannie with her enslaver, and to which Headen replied, “Master, I always thought that if ever I was free I would educate my children.” [3] This simple response demonstrated his philosophy that education was key to Black liberation.

Only the leaders of the 1865 Mobile convention are named and the proceedings themselves end with the collective signature,  “Yours for Equal Rights, Alabama,” instead of any singular person’s name [4], but Headen was a chosen as a delegate to the 1872 Republican State Convention in Montgomery by ballot. [4] It is likely that Headen was active in Reconstruction politics. He later became one of Talladega’s trustees.