Talladega, Alabama · Founded 1867 · Tornadoes (mascots listed as Dear Ole' Dega, Dega, TC)
“Alabama's oldest private HBCU — bought out of a bankrupt white academy by freedmen in 1867, home of the Amistad murals, and the 200-strong Great Tornado band.”
The most recent major showcase: A1 Media's full 4K field show from the HBCU Labor Day Classic Battle of the Bands in Jackson, Mississippi, September 6, 2026.
BandTube HD's full movie of the 9.13.26 Big HBCU Battle of the Bands — Talladega (Great Tornado) takes the field at 1:52:35 and squares up in a stand battle against South Carolina State's Marching 101 at 2:18:41.
NAIA's official Black History Month spotlight on the college — band, Greek life, athletics, pageantry — a clean 2-minute institutional portrait.
Delta Sigma Theta's Alpha Zeta chapter holds its Spring 2019 new-initiate presentation on campus — living proof of D9 life at Talladega.
First-person vlog of Talladega College Homecoming weekend — the parties, the Yard, the frat-brother energy of the biggest week of the school year.
The High Museum of Art's video on the 1938 commission, the removal of the six murals for the first time, and their extensive conservation before the 'Rising Up' national tour.
WBHM/NPR video embedded in the January 6, 2017 piece on the inauguration invitation — the campus debate, the alumni pushback, and the students' case for marching, shot before the GoFundMe exploded past $600,000.
The official 2015 Honda Invitational Showcase sizzle reel from Honda's own blog — includes the Great Tornado's first-ever Honda Battle of the Bands appearance before nearly 60,000 fans in the Georgia Dome.
Embedded in the Talladega College section of a classroom 'HBCU Bands' presentation — an educator's pick of the Marching Tornadoes as an exemplar of HBCU band culture. Title not independently confirmed beyond the Prezi placement.
NAIA Network's full broadcast of the 2016 NAIA Division I Game of the Week: #8 Talladega at Dillard, where the Bleu Devils snapped the Tornadoes' 11-game win streak 84-74 in New Orleans.
Gameday video tied to Campbellsville's 2017 NAIA women's tournament preview: #24 Talladega (22-8, GCAC regular-season and tournament champs) vs. #10 Campbellsville in the first round at Billings, Montana.
2014 Buffalo Funds NAIA Division I Men's Basketball National Championship postgame: assistant coach Hellion Knight on the Tornadoes' tournament run.
Class of 1958 — California State legislator who returned as president of Talladega College, 1998–2001.
Class of 1894 — agriculturist, Tuskegee Institute faculty member, first Black alumnus of UMass Amherst.
Class of 1947 — biologist and cancer researcher; college dean and president of California State University, Fullerton.
Class of 1918 — national YWCA leader and college trustee; the campus's Derricotte House is named for her.
Class of 1938 — founder and director of the Ebony Fashion Fair, which defined Black fashion presentation for decades.
Class of 1935 — social scientist, president of Talladega College 1964–76 and president of the United Negro College Fund.
Author who won the 2011 National Book Award for Poetry for 'Head Off & Split.'
Class of 1996 — poet and writer.
Class of 1961 — 12th president of Hampton University; the campus art museum bears his name.
Class of 1971 — cultural studies, law and literature scholar and author; Duke University dean emerita.
Class of 1927 — civil-rights attorney remembered as 'Alabama's drum major for justice'; trustee chairman; Shores Hall named for him.
Class of 1939 — attorney and civil-rights advocate; first African American woman to chair the NAACP national board of directors (1975–83).
~1944 — first African American woman elected to the New Jersey Senate.
~1958 — first African American elected to public office in Oregon.
Class of 2000 — U.S. congresswoman for Georgia's 5th district and chair of the Georgia Democratic Party.
Class of 1967 — civil-rights attorney and Alabama State Senator.
Class of 1902 — orator, educator, journalist and essayist; wrote the autobiographies 'The Heir of Slaves' (1911) and 'Bursting Bonds' (1923).
Class of 1938 — philosopher, educator and activist.
Class of 1954 — advertising executive; founded Proctor and Gardner Advertising in 1970.
Class of 1971 — developmental psychologist; MacArthur Foundation 'Genius Grant' Fellow, 1996.
On November 20, 1866, two formerly enslaved men — William Savery and Thomas Tarrant — met at a Freedmen's Bureau convention in Mobile with other newly freed men and adopted a pledge: 'We regard the education of our children and youth as vital to the preservation of our liberties, and true religion as the foundation of all real virtue.' That pledge is the founding document of Talladega College. It was not charity handed down; it was a plan made by the freed people themselves.
Savery, Tarrant, and a third Talladega freedman, Ambrose Headen, built a one-room schoolhouse out of lumber salvaged from an abandoned carpenter's shop. The school overflowed with pupils from the day it opened, and larger quarters were immediately needed. This one-room school is the direct ancestor of the college.
The nearby Coosa River Valley Baptist Academy, founded in 1852, was about to be sold under mortgage default. That building had been raised with slave labor — carpenter William Savery and laborers Thomas Tarrant and Ambrose Headen among them. A plea went to Maj. Gen. Wager Swayne of the Freedmen's Bureau, who got the Bureau to buy the land if the American Missionary Association would buy the building and organize the school. The building and land were purchased for $23,000, and the AMA christened it the Swayne School, which opened in November 1867 with about 140 pupils. A building constructed by slave labor for white students became Alabama's first college dedicated to serving the educational needs of Black students — a fact the college still points to as its founding irony.
In 1869 the Swayne School was issued a charter and renamed Talladega College by the Judge of Probate of Talladega County. The old academy building, now called Swayne Hall, remained the symbol and spirit of the beginning — and still does. Built in 1857, it is the oldest building on campus and was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 2, 1974.
Looking toward a four-year college course, the trustees elected the Rev. Henry Swift DeForest, D.D., as President of Talladega College. DeForest, a Yale graduate in the class of 1857 who had been drafted into the Union army and served as a chaplain, had first met the South in wartime; his arrival at Talladega was only his second visit. He won the full confidence of the town and the college, and when he died in a fatal accident in 1896, southern pastors testified at his funeral in the college chapel. A county history calls his memory 'precious and permanent' in town and college alike.
Talladega began as a school for elementary and secondary grades — 'a school of higher learning in name only,' as the National Park Service puts it. The outline of a collegiate-grade course first appeared in the catalog in 1890, and in 1895 the first class graduated with the bachelor's degree. At that time, and until well into the 20th century, Talladega was the only institution in Alabama equipped to offer Black students a true undergraduate education. The college had deliberately chosen the liberal-arts path at a moment when vocational training dominated Black education in the state.
A chapel was built in commemoration of the life and service of Henry Swift DeForest, president from 1879 to 1896. It anchors the spiritual life of the campus; it was renovated and rededicated in November 1996, almost a century after DeForest's death. DeForest was the father of inventor Lee De Forest.
The 1909–10 catalog shows a school doing everything at once: 21 men in theology, 20 men and 20 women in the college, high school and teacher-training divisions, a grammar department, a conservatory of music with 69 students, nurse training, night school — and 370 pupils in the Cassedy School for grades K–5. Total enrollment was 797. Tuition ran from 50 cents to $2.00 a month; room and board was $10.00 a month plus an hour of work a day. By 1937 total enrollment was 567, with 281 in the college and 120 in the high school.
Under President Frederick A. Sumner the campus took the physical form it still has: a building boom of Colonial Revival structures built by contractor Joseph Fletcher, culminating with Derricotte House in 1941. The National Register nomination says the creation of the campus 'culminated in the building boom under President Sumner (1916–1932).' Thirty-two campus buildings are now listed on the National Register as the Talladega College Historic District, with the period of significance running from Swayne Hall (c. 1852) to Derricotte House (1941).
The federal landmark study 'Negro Education' by Thomas Jesse Jones still found elementary, secondary, and collegiate sections at Talladega. What stood out was the college-level curriculum — biology, history, German, Latin, Greek, mathematics, economics, sociology — which the study said was 'intended to prepare pupils for active service in teaching or for further study in progressive professional schools.' The federal government had noticed: Talladega was doing classical liberal arts for Black students when few places in the South would.
A gift of the General Education Board and of friends and alumni, Silsby Science Hall was named for E. C. Silsby, a member of the college faculty for 37 years. It contains the laboratories and classrooms for the Natural Sciences and Mathematics. The building was renovated in 1989, keeping it in continuous academic service.
Fanning Refectory was built in 1928 from a legacy of David H. Fanning of Worcester, Massachusetts. It contains the student and faculty dining rooms, and its name is one of many on campus recording the Northern philanthropists whose money — matched by Black labor and leadership — raised the early buildings.
President Buell G. Gallagher's tenure coincided with the two events that define Talladega's artistic legacy: the completion of Savery Library in 1939, built to replace the 1907 Andrew Carnegie library, and his 1938 commission to Harlem Renaissance artist Hale Woodruff for the Amistad murals. The library's lobby was designed to carry Woodruff's six monumental canvases, which turned the building into a national monument to Black resistance and freedom.
Gallagher commissioned Hale Aspacio Woodruff — born in Cairo, Illinois, trained in Paris, an apprentice of Diego Rivera — to paint six large-scale murals for the new Savery Library. The first three were installed in 1939, on the centennial of the 1839 Amistad revolt: the mutiny aboard La Amistad led by Sengbe Pieh (Joseph Cinqué), the trial of the captives in New Haven, and the repatriation of the freed captives to Africa — the first mural cycle on the Amistad story in the twentieth century. The companion three depict the Underground Railroad, the first day of student registration at Talladega in 1867, and the building of Savery Library itself. School tradition holds that the La Amistad mural embedded in the library floor must never be stepped upon. The High Museum of Art's 2012 exhibition 'Rising Up' called them among Woodruff's greatest achievements; two of the canvases measure 20 feet across, and New York Times critic Roberta Smith called each 'a one-act play unto itself.'
A gift of the Harkness Foundation, the house was named for Juliette Derricotte, Class of 1918, who was serving on the Board of Trustees at the time of her death in 1932. It is the last of builder Joseph Fletcher's Colonial Revival structures on campus and was converted into a women's honors dormitory in 1988.
Alumnus Herman H. Long, Class of 1935, a social scientist, led the college for twelve years. He later became president of the United Negro College Fund, making Talladega both his alma mater and one of the schools in the UNCF fold he would go on to lead. His presidency carried the college through the civil-rights era's later years.
On December 2, 1974, Swayne Hall — the building raised with slave labor in the 1850s that freed people turned into a college — was designated a National Historic Landmark. The same year Arthur D. Shores Hall was constructed, named for the late attorney Arthur D. Shores, Class of 1927, who served for many years as a member and chairman of the College Board of Trustees. The twin events mark the college's arrival as a nationally recognized institution.
The Billy C. Hawkins presidency brought the college's most visible modern expansion. Hawkins, the 20th president, announced three consecutive record-setting enrollment increases (October 2020); in 2009 the college won a full 10-year SACS accreditation. In 2012 he and the Board of Trustees established the Great Tornado marching band, which debuted at the Honda Battle of the Bands in 2015, marched in the 2017 presidential inaugural parade after a GoFundMe topped $600,000, and played New Orleans Saints halftimes in 2016, 2017 and 2021. The 47,000-square-foot Dr. Billy C. Hawkins Student Activity Center — with a 2,000-seat gymnasium, dining hall, coffee lounge, and fitness area — was completed in 2020, making Hawkins the first Black president of the college with a building named in his honor. He stepped down in June 2022.
In 2011 Atlanta's High Museum of Art partnered with the college to remove the Woodruff murals from Savery Library for the first time for extensive conservation — a $116,000 restoration paid for by the High, under a contract in which each host museum contributed $25,000 directly to the college. The exhibition 'Rising Up: Hale Woodruff's Murals at Talladega College' toured nationally for three years: the High (2012), the Chicago Cultural Center (2013), the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (2014–15), the Birmingham Museum of Art (2015), and NYU's 80WSE Gallery, among eight museums. Then valued around $40 million, the murals drew more than 3,000 pilgrims a year even before the tour; they returned to a permanent home in the new Dr. William R. Harvey Museum of Art.
After Hawkins came a stretch of turnover: Gregory Vincent served from November 2022 to June 2024, followed by Edward Hill Jr. as interim in June 2024 and Walter Kimbrough as interim from June 2024 to June 2025. In 2024 the school conducted a financial review, cut its women's gymnastics program (which had run only the 2023–24 season), ended the golf program, and reduced faculty while trying to boost enrollment. The turbulence set up the 2025 turnaround efforts.
Three things broke Talladega's way at once: the Hope Enterprise Corporation and Credit Union of Jackson, Mississippi, provided a $15 million working-capital loan; actor S. Epatha Merkerson delivered the commencement address and announced a $1 million donation; and Willie Todd Jr. took office as president in July 2025. The college that freed people bought out of a bankrupt white academy in 1867 entered its next chapter with its murals home, its band famous, and its finances steadied.
🥁 The Great Tornado (Talladega College Tornado Marching Band) · since 2012
The largest organization on campus, 200+ members with five drum majors and the Dega Diamonds danceline. Established in 2012 by President Billy C. Hawkins and the Board of Trustees, it became the school's calling card almost overnight: Honda Battle of the Bands debut in 2015, the only HBCU band in the 2017 presidential inaugural parade (where NPR's Asma Khalid noted they performed Pharrell Williams' 'Happy' for the reviewing stand), New Orleans Saints halftimes in 2016, 2017 and 2021, the London New Year's Day Parade in 2024, and UNCF Galas in 2023 and 2024. In 2026 the band was on the field at the HBCU Labor Day Classic Battle of the Bands in Jackson, Mississippi.
Founding director who built the Great Tornado from nothing starting in 2012 and taught the great majority of the college's music courses himself. He led the band's Honda Battle of the Bands debut in 2015, the 2017 presidential inauguration parade in Washington (the trip that drew national coverage after a GoFundMe topped $600,000), and the New Orleans Saints halftime appearances in 2016, 2017 and 2021. Sources conflict on the exact end of his tenure; he is no longer named as director in the Saints' October 2024 gameday announcement.
Named as the band's director in the New Orleans Saints' official October 2024 gameday announcement, when the Great Tornado returned to the Superdome for Saints vs. Buccaneers halftime. He inherited a band with UNCF Gala (2023, 2024) and London New Year's Day Parade (2024) credits.
Fraternities and sororities have existed at Talladega since 1921, and the campus holds some of the oldest D9 chapters in the country: Alpha Beta (Alpha Phi Alpha, chartered April 25, 1921 — the fraternity's 24th chapter) and Gamma Psi (Omega Psi Phi, October 1921) both date to the fraternity's first decade of southern expansion, and Iota (Zeta Phi Beta, 1946) is nearly as old as the postwar Greek boom. The college's own student-life materials list eight of the nine D9 orgs with chapters on campus under the Pan-Hellenic Council; with Zeta Phi Beta's Iota chapter active, the full Divine Nine is represented. The college's at-a-glance page counts 9 Greek Life chapters. Step shows, probates, and homecoming strolls are part of the campus rhythm — Gamma Gamma Kappa Alpha Psi rolls deep at Homecoming.
Still digging this up — check back soon.
Gift of the Harkness Foundation and named for Juliette Derricotte, Class of 1918, who was serving on the Board of Trustees when she died in 1932. After decades as a staff residence and guest house, it was converted into a women's honors dormitory, folding one of the campus's last Colonial Revival houses into student life.
Andrews Hall (1910, the Music and Education building) and Silsby Science Hall (1927) both underwent documented renovations with reversible interior partitions and door replacements, per the National Register nomination updates. The work kept the Sumner-era Colonial Revival buildings in active academic use without altering their exteriors.
The 1903 chapel built to honor Henry Swift DeForest was renovated and rededicated in November 1996, nearly a century after the president it commemorates died in an 1896 accident.
The Birmingham News reported a campus-renewal push under President Billy C. Hawkins ('Talladega College renewing campus,' July 9, 2007). Details of individual projects were not independently verified; the article is cited in bhamwiki's history of the college.
The first of three major campus facilities to open in 2019, a state-of-the-art residence hall whose ribbon-cutting was covered by the HBCU Campaign Fund. It signaled the college's effort to grow enrollment by giving students modern housing on the historic 50-acre campus.
Named for the 20th president of Talladega College, this 47,000-square-foot facility houses a 2,000-seat gymnasium, dining hall, full kitchen, concession stand, coffee lounge, convenience store, fitness area, and multipurpose rooms. The announcement made Hawkins the first Black president of the college to have a building named in his honor.
Founded in 2014 and opened in 2020, the museum's showcase piece is Hale Woodruff's 'Mutiny on the Amistad' murals, returned to permanent campus display after the 2011–2015 conservation and national tour. It is named for William R. Harvey, Class of 1961, the 12th president of Hampton University.
Constructed in 1974 and named for the late attorney Arthur D. Shores, Class of 1927, who served for many years as a member and chairman of the College Board of Trustees. It stands as one of the campus's modern-era academic buildings among the historic district.
Provost, athletic director, and coaching staff were not documented in the sources checked for this profile; no names are invented here. The band directorship is the best-documented leadership line after the presidency: Dr. Miguel Bonds built the Great Tornado from its 2012 founding through its Honda, inauguration, and Saints eras.
Took office as president in July 2025, arriving with the $15M Hope Enterprise working-capital loan and S. Epatha Merkerson's $1M gift — the post-financial-review rebuilding presidency.
Band director (verified via the New Orleans Saints' October 2024 gameday announcement); leads the Great Tornado and the Dega Diamonds.
Talladega is a small, oak-lined, 50-acre campus in the foothills of the Blue Ridge — 'a quiet place, away from the distractions and fast pace of urban living,' the college says. What moves it: the sound of the Great Tornado band bringing campus to life, Homecoming week, the Royal Court (Mr. Talladega College was the 18th in 2026–27), and the Billy C. Hawkins Student Center as the gathering place. In Savery Library, students learn the Amistad story as freshmen from the library director — and they learn the floor mural is never stepped on. Students from San Salvador to Birmingham describe arriving for the history and staying because the place became home.