Andrew Foster (educator), Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Andrew Foster (educator)

American educator

Date of Birth: 27-Jul-1925

Place of Birth: Alabama, United States

Date of Death: 12-Mar-1987

Profession: missionary

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Leo

Andrew Jackson Foster (1925–1987) was a missionary to the deaf in Ghana, Rwanda and other countries in Africa from 1956 until his death in 1987.
In 1954, he became the first Deaf African American to earn a bachelor's degree from Gallaudet University and the first to earn a master's degree from Eastern Michigan University.
He soon earned a second master's degree from Seattle Pacific Christian College (now called Seattle Pacific University) also in education.
He founded Christian Mission for the Deaf African in 1956 and eventually set out for Accra, Ghana, where he established the first school for the deaf on the entire continent of Africa. Andrew Foster was born in Ensley, Alabama, the son of a coal miner.
His parents were Wiley and Veline.
He and his younger brother Edward became deaf through spinal meningitis in 1936.
Educational opportunities for African Americans in that era prevented him from achieving more than an eighth-grade education.
At the age of sixteen, he moved to Flint, Michigan to live with his aunt and attended Bethany Pembroke church where he later committed his life to the call of Christ.
He completed high school through a correspondence course with an American School in Chicago, Ill in 1951. In 1961 Andrew was married to Berta, a deaf German, and together they had 5 children (4 boys and 1 girl).
Gallaudet College awarded him an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters in 1970 for his accomplishment.