As COO of the nonprofit River Front Development Group (RFDG), Catherine Mitchell brings an alphabet soup of credentials, along with decades of experience, to the Asheville-based Community Development Corporation that she leads.
RFDG is the lead developer of the Black Cultural Heritage Trail and Heritage Museum at Stephens Lee Recreation Center. The Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority and Explore Asheville Conventions and Visitors Bureau sponsor the project. RFDG operates the Berry Temple Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics STEAM Academy.
Mitchell is a retired attorney, law professor, realtor, consultant, and writer who has fulfilled both public and private professional roles in such far-flung places as Mississippi, New York, New Jersey, and Asheville.
She earned her undergraduate degree at Syracuse University, where she was the 1968 Eleanor Roosevelt Scholar, and her Juris Doctor degree from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, School of Law. In law school, once again, her scholarly achievements earned her the title of Reginald Heber Smith Scholar in 1971. Her legal credentials admitted her to the bar in Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, and to federal courts in all three states—and the US Supreme Court.
Public Service in Three States
Early in her career Mitchell demonstrated her lifelong interest in public service, serving as a staff attorney for the North Mississippi Legal Services Program and as Counsel to the City of Mound Bayou, MS. In the latter job she specialized in Constitutional Litigation and Municipal Corporations Law—the latter an area of expertise she would later repeat as Counsel to the City Council of Paterson, New Jersey.
These decades of legal practice for cities large and small, nonprofit organizations set up to help lower-income people in their dealings with legal issues, and corporations with a wide range of…
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