From Staff Reports

The two-year-old Ashville-Buncombe County Community Reparations Commission has received a six-month extension to complete its work by January 2025.

In the next six months, the ARC “will look to form a nonprofit organization that can receive private and government money, create a black chamber of commerce and an accountability council,” the Asheville Citizen Times reported on Aug 29. “It will also set up a truth and reconciliation task force, with the job of addressing damage done to black residents not addressed by the CRC.”

What’s more, the ACT noted, “Leaders of the groundbreaking commission representing one of the only government reparations initiatives in the country for black residents said they had struggled with the heavy historical burden and repeated changes in staff supplied by the city and Buncombe County.” 

To that end, the ACT quoted CRC Chair Dewanna Little telling Asheville’s council at a May 27 meeting the following:

 â€œAll the trauma, all the harm all the perpetuation of that on black people, the disenfranchisement, it didn’t happen in two years.”

Further, she said, “Creating a truth and reconciliation task force to deal with enslavement, forced railroad work, the war on drugs’ disparate racial effects and other historic harms to local black residents will be one of the last jobs” of the CRC.

Regarding the CRC’s six-month extension request, City Manager Debra Campbell said that no vote by council was needed because city staff already had agreed that more time was need for it to complete its assignment.

 â€œThat will come with continued government support that has included stipends for members of up to $150 a month for two or more meetings,” the ACT noted. “The Citizen Times reached out Aug. 28 to the city for the cost of other support” costs for the CRC, but the newspaper did not report receiving an answer.

Among those on council offering praise for the CRC’s efforts were Vice Mayor Sandra Kilgore, who is one of three blacks on council; and Maggie Ullman, who is white.

At that point, Little told council that the extra half-year would let the CRC finish the extensive work “to the best of our abilities.”To date, the ACT noted, the CRC has voted to approve “39 recommendations, including guaranteed income, the creation of an economic development center and paying for existing initiatives in historically black neighborhoods.”