Meet Jasmine Jasmine is the founding Executive Director of the Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE), an Asheville-based non-profit that launched in 2011 to promote full equality for LGBTQ people and families across the South. Service and faith are the driving forces in her work - from teaching in prisons to becoming an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.
CSE helped to win marriage equality in North Carolina and Mississippi and works across the region - especially in small towns - to promote LGBTQ equality. Jasmine also works as a part-time chaplain for the Echoing Green Foundation, which supports global leaders in developing innovative solution to social problems. As a kid, Jasmine would visit Buncombe County with her mom on trips to the mountains. While attending the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson, she fell in love with Asheville and later taught writing at the college. During this time, Jasmine was active in progressive politics in local, state and national races. She and Meghann left the area to continue their educations and returned to Asheville in 2010 to start their family. Meghann is an attorney in Asheville. As a family, they love hiking, biking and running at Bent Creek, playing soccer, and exploring our community with their three children. Raised in Chapel Hill, NC, Jasmine public schools through high school and received her undergraduate degree from Brown University. She holds a Master of Fine Arts and completed her Master of Divinity degree at Harvard Divinity School. She serves on the Biden Foundation’s Advisory Council for Advancing LGBTQ Equality. A fiction writer, her first collection of short stories, Damn Love, received honorable mention in the Pen/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction in 2014. Jasmine was elected to Buncombe County Commission in 2016 and selected as Vice Chair in 2018. She currently services on the Early Childhood Education and Development Committee, Justice Resource Advisory Council, and Juvenile Crime Prevention Council. She focuses on policy issues related to creating a community where every child can thrive, including early childhood education and affordable housing. |
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