Foster was born on June 27, 1925, in Ensley, Ala. At the age of 11, both he and his brother contracted spinal meningitis and became deaf. During Foster's time as a child, education for African Americans was limited only up to the sixth grade.

Andrew Foster, also known as the “Father of Deaf Education in Africa,” was an educator and pioneering foreign missionary for the deaf. Born on June 27, 1925 in the Ensley neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama, Foster was the eldest of the four children.

God called Andrew Foster home on December 4, 1987. Shortly after departure from the Goma Airport, his plane crashed in Gisenyi, Rwanda. The site of the crash has been made into a memorial which stands to this day. The following photos and aerial Google Map shows the location of the Rwanda Air Crash Victims Memorial site.

Andrew Jackson Foster was an American pioneer of deaf education in several countries in Africa. In 1954, he became the first Deaf African American to earn a bachelor's degree from Gallaudet University, the American university for the Deaf, and the first to earn a master's degree from Eastern Michigan University.

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