Empowering Our African American Communities

Andrew Cole, president of “Our” Future Community Development Inc.

by Sarah Williams

Andrew Cole is a man of vision. He has two major concerns that are dominating his thoughts presently: our youth and African American communities, not merely the Asheville community but all African American communities.
Cole is the president and cofounder of “Our” Future Community Development Inc., a business to advise, acquire, plan usage, and develop properties in the community.

African American
communities are important to him. “To strengthen our communities,” he
says, “we need to return to ‘that old time religion’ of the ‘50s and
‘60s.” He challenges every man today to at least fast and pray one day
per month. For those who are strong enough, the challenge is to fast
and pray the entire last week of each and every month, taking in fluids
only.

He
believes that Asheville residents currently have “a golden opportunity
to develop your own community spiritually, socially, culturally, and
economically. This opportunity might not come again.” He envisions an
area that encompasses stores, cultural music, arts, indoor and outdoor
markets, restaurants, a museum, recording and education center,
cultural library and more. He challenges Ashevillians to participate in
the building of the African American community. This way, he believes,
the people will take pride in protecting it.

Cole
works with a team of professionals who are experienced and accomplished
and are ready, willing, and able to come to Asheville to help
Asheville’s African American community accomplish its goals. “I pray
the people of Asheville will not allow local or global corporations to
deceptively or forcefully take over your land and communities. They are
already there doing what they do best.”

For,
Cole believes, “national and global corporations have perfected a
formula to acquire whole communities, towns, and countries. We live in
communities made up of varying degrees of strength, and we are only as
strong as our weakest link.”

That’s
why he believes it’s essential that members of the community come
together to strengthen themselves by strengthening each other.

“If we
see our brother has a problem, it is our God-given duty to assist him
with whatever physical or spiritual assistance we can render, no matter
how difficult it might seem. We are our brother’s keeper.”

Asheville
is not Andrew’s home, but he has long-established family ties to the
area. His mother and aunt were born in Asheville and lived on Clemmons
Street in the East End, where a great-aunt lived into the 1960s. He was
born in the Bronx, New York in 1948 and raised in Pelham, New York. He
now resides in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

Along
with financial development in the community, Cole is an advocate of
youth education and mentoring programs. He says, “We have to
spiritually nourish and guide our youth. This guidance will train them
to become tomorrow’s leaders. Our youth have a deep thirst for guidance
and leadership. We are charged by God to give them what they need to
insure a positive future. Sororities and fraternities are in a great
position to influence young people to grow in positive directions.
African American men need to man up and take control of their children.

“If we
are extraordinarily talented in a specific area that other brothers or
sisters have not yet become successfully talented in, please do not
gloat because God did not give them the same level of blessings in that
area. Be strong; reach out and help your brothers or sisters, and pull
them up by their suspenders. Pull them up again and again until they
are stable enough to stand on their own two feet.”

Cole
asserts “If we can dream up, design, and produce a viable community,
all that’s left to do is to advertise and deliver. We can do that. This
is the Thunderdome concept. This will put money back into the
community.”