A Dream Begins Anew
Chapter 8 describes Headen’s move in 1925 to Albany, Georgia, where he established the Headen Motor Car Company and began the engine work that led to his first patent. The chapter explores the coalition he built in Albany, which comprised black beauty salon owner and clubwoman Emma V. Wynn and her husband fraternal leader and café owner William Wynn; members of the white Chamber of Commerce; black nationalist attorney Henry V. Plummer; and auto enthusiast Edward E. Harris. The chapter also documents Headen’s rise as an inventor, his relationship with white railroad engineer Henry A. Petit (co-inventor on his first patent), and his move away from the coalition model in favor of individual investors, including patent speculator George P. Koelliker and financier George D. Hamilton. The chapter places Headen’s activities in the context of growing African American automobility, the history of bi-fuel engines, and the existing avenues of funding for independent inventors.