The Racial Justice Coalition (RJC) is a broad-based alliance of individuals and organizations committed to addressing systemic racism and state-sanctioned violence against Black people and those most impacted by poverty, criminalization, and mass incarceration. Through grassroots-led organizing and community collaborations, the RJC seeks to achieve and sustain deep equity by building power to those historically underrepresented, dismantling policies and institutions that uphold racism, and reimagining a community where justice exists for all people.
We Believe:
- We believe that our community must commit to reparations for Black people
- We believe in divesting from traditional law enforcement in order to invest in the Black community
- We believe in radically reimagining public safety in the city of Asheville, Buncombe County and Western North Carolina
- We believe that the criminalization of Black people intersects with the inequities of many marginalized groups
- We believe that movement and organizing work rooted in structural racism should be Black-led
- We believe that grassroots leadership is directly linked to building community
- We believe in centering those most impacted by systemic racism and oppression
- We believe that undoing racism includes the long-haul work of shifting power and reallocating resources
- We believe in transformative and healing justice
- We believe in creating transformational relationships, not transactional
- We believe that none of us are free, until all of us are free