Asheville’s Tzedek Social Justice Fund serves as a fiscal sponsor and incubator for the Reparations Stakeholder Authority of Asheville (RSAA). The RSAA is a Black-led, community-based project that will serve as a Community Reparations Finance Authority in keeping with the Reparatory Justice Model piloted in Evanston, Illinois and certified by the National African American Reparations Commission.
The goal of the RSAA is to provide an infrastructure for Black residents of Asheville and Buncombe County to guide the distribution of funds intended for reparations. The RSAA will administer an Asheville Reparations Community Fund, similar to that created in Evanston. The Fund is intended to be a perpetual resource for Buncombe County’s Black community, to complement the tax revenue stream earmarked by the City and County for initial reparations remedies, and to ensure funding is available for reparations once those tax revenues are no longer available.