CONNECT . MOTIVATE . INSPIRE .
Naturally, her mother, who was in many ways a tour de force of Black art and culture for their family, was among Cole’s earliest educational influences. Joining her was another powerful Black woman teacher, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder and president of nearby Daytona Beach’s now-Bethune- Cookman University, and whose social and political leadership included the founding and presidency of the now- National Council of Negro Women, Inc., of which Cole was most recently seventh national president and chair. Cole would find inspiration next at Fisk University, where she enrolled early at 15. There, she was mentored by poet and novelist Arna Bontemps, who was the University’s librarian. More than a handful of years ago, Cole told me that she would’ve finished at Fisk had it not been for the unexpected death of her father following her exchange stint-turned-academic career at Oberlin College, for which she graduated along with the future Dr. Niara Sudarkasa, who later became
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