New Book by Local Authors: ‘The Power of 8’
Holding on to friendships for decades can be a challenge, but it gets even more challenging when you’re trying to run a business at the same time, never mind a series of businesses.
The story of how William and Robin Randolph of Castro Valley, along with six of their friends, did that through Oakland-based Unique Enterprises is told in a new book, “The Power of 8: Our Unique Journey.”
Like a number of other things in their lives, the eight friends wrote the book together.
“We made some money, we lost some money, and we’re still here,” William Randolph said.
He’s an ordained minister who has preached at Oakland’s Antioch Missionary Baptist Church and elsewhere, and was quick to call the investment group’s original founding “a leap of faith.”
The friends had met at Antioch Baptist, starting when William’s mother was asked to babysit Mary Tuft’s then-eight-month-old daughter Lynée so Mary could go to a concert. Mary was active with the church and owned a hat store in North Oakland on Telegraph Avenue.
She was also interested in generating wealth to economically develop Black communities in Oakland and nearby. She had worked in the insurance industry and had seen how some Asian immigrant families were able to pool resources to get a business started for first one member, then another.
Mary called a meeting for friends from the church and told everybody to bring $1,000 to get started.
“Turnout was excellent, but nobody actually brought $1,000,” William Randolph remembered with a laugh.
Mary and the others started an investment club, initially with $35 a month dues, which was initially put in a stock then selling for $6 a share. When it rose to $90, they sold it and had the seed money for their next project.
That turned out to be building a duplex from bare soil on 55th Street in Oakland. Buoyed by their faith that God would provide, and set on keeping money from wages in the community, they soon discovered everything they did not collectively know about building housing.
Of the entire group, only William Randolph had any experience in building housing, through his work with an Oakland nonprofit. Besides the costs of their own housing and raising their families, each family had to pay $580 a month for the unbuilt house, which took four years to complete.
But, Randolph said, “Nobody went hungry, nobody lost their house, and one family bought their own first house in the meantime.”
They do credit divine intervention, on top of their hard work, for making the project a success. If anyone wants to follow their lead, Randolph said, the actual plans are in the book.
Unique Enterprises went on to invest in stocks, stock options, gold and other precious metals. They even bought and sold Iraqi dinars when Saddam Hussein was still in power, but unsteadily.
Years later, the friendships have deepened, Mary retired but remains the group’s “Founder and Visionary,” her daughter Lynée grew up and joined the partnership, and the children those families raised are beginning their adult lives on a solid footing.
The Power of 8 tells all those stories, along with advice on what to do and what not to do if you’d like to follow in their footsteps. Co-authors besides William Randolph, who now runs a small engineering and surveying company, are his wife Robin Randolph, a retired hotel executive assistant; Mary Tuft; her daughter Lynée Bullard, a financial recovery specialist with Alameda County; Keith Bullard, an I.T. professional currently working in housing; Madeline McClinton, a social services professional; Jamal McClinton, who works in logistics and transportation; and book project coordinator Meredith Evans Moore, now retired after a career with the Oakland schools and the city’s parks and recreation department.
One can buy “The Power of 8” through Amazon (it shows the author as Unique Enterprises, Mary Tuft, et al.) , or ask for it at your local bookstore. You can get more information about Unique Enterprises at their website, https://uniqueofoakland.com/ or by emailing them at unique.oakland@gmail.com.
