by Moe White

Whether one calls him Dr. Rainey (he has a PhD), Rev. Rainey (he trained to be a minister of the Church of Christ), Chairman Rainey (he chaired the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners from 1988 to 1996), or just plain Gene, Gene Rainey is always recognized as a serious man who has spent his life undertaking important business.

As a young man he earned two bachelors degrees, a BA in Political Science (1957) from George Washington University, Washington, D.C. and a BS in Public Affairs (1958) from Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. Two years later he had his MA in International Relations from the renowned Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and in 1966 was awarded his PhD in International Relations from American University in Washington. He had also attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University from 1954 to 1957.

Like many leaders before him, teaching has been both a career and a way of life. As an instructor, professor, dean, department chair, and professor emeritus, at Universities in Ohio, Washington, DC, and Asheville; as chair of Asheville’s Model Cities Commission, Land of the Sky Regional Council (1994-96), and in other civic roles; and as an elected official for Asheville (City Council, 1975-79) and Buncombe County (1988-96), he has always led by teaching.

For his professional and civic leadership over many years of community service, Rainey has been honored with the Governor’s Order of the Long Leaf Pine (the state’s highest honor), the Distinguished Senior Professor Award at UNC-Asheville, and the Land of the Sky Regional Council Campbell Award.

As important as these awards that honor his civic involvement are, however, he is viewed by many in the Asheville community as a true leader and mentor in improving black-white relationships. The MLK Association of Asheville and Buncombe County has given him its Martin Luther King, Jr. Award, and the Asheville-Buncombe County Community Relations Council presented him with its Award for Leadership. In many ways, that focus on community culminated in the nonprofit organization, Our Next Generation, which he founded in 1996.

“When I was still in the Courthouse,” Rainey says, “business owners on Patton Avenue came to me to talk about the Cruising Clubs. Police had tried to organize activities for them at Sams Club parking lot, but that hadn’t been very successful. So I met with the leaders of the clubs at Denny’s and asked them what were the problems they needed us to address.

“They told me there were two problems: they needed a place where gangs aren’t around, and they needed jobs.” Rainey explains that even then Asheville had a dozen or more gangs with a total of 200 members. And in earlier years there had been four community youth centers around the city, one in the basement of the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, where he witnessed youngsters of all races mixing together and where young people could gather safely. But over time funding disappeared for them, and by 1996 there were no youth centers left.

So that year Rainey decided not to run for a third term as Commission chairman; instead he founded Our Next Generation, a nonprofit corporation to establish youth centers and youth-run businesses.

Between 1996 and 2008, when it shut its doors, that’s just what the organization did. Starting with an infusion of Federal funds (“earmarked” by former Rep. Charles Taylor), ONG trained at least 60 at-risk youth in a variety of building trades – carpentry, plumbing, etc. – and bought, rehabilitated, and resold a dozen houses around Buncombe County. The program was meeting two important goals: providing affordable housing to whoever needed it, and teaching useful skills to those who needed them most.

And it was self-sustaining. Though similar in some ways to programs like Youthbuild that rehab publicly owned housing, usually in center cities, ONG rehabilitated homes all over Buncombe County and sold them at a profit (though they were still affordable to people of modest means). That combination of nonprofit philosophy and pure capitalism (product + added value = profit) was both a key to Our Next Generation’s success and an integral part of its training. Some participants went on to study in more advanced programs, such as AB Tech’s construction program and, in one case, the business program at Appalachian State.

Our Next Generation also established one youth center, in Black Mountain, to help meet the other need articulated by the Cruising Club leaders.

When Dr. Rainey and his wife began Our Next Generation, it was the fourth organization in the area that focused on maintaining and increasing affordable housing stock. When they retired (due to health problems), only Mountain Housing Opportunities and Habitat for Humanity remained. But he emphasizes that the need is still there, both for housing, training programs, and youth centers.

Rainey also notes that as a father himself he feels strongly about the need for every father in the community to reach beyond the concerns of immediate family and think about the ongoing issues in Asheville. “There are about 150 homeless young people here, most of them dropouts from small towns around Western North Carolina. They stay homeless an average of two years, and when they come back into the ‘real world,’ they bring attitudes that enrich us all. They’re very anti-violence, anti-war – they’re often preyed on by gangs. Every father should be concerned about their problems.

“We should be concerned about the gang activity. All along Patton Avenue on Sunday mornings you find syringes, beer cans, and condoms – because when the Cruisers drive by the gangs are on the side of the road selling drugs, alcohol, and their women. Fathers need to be concerned about that.”

Gene and Dorma Rainey have been married since 1958; they have two grown children – Cheryl, who earned a PhD at Vanderbilt University, and Eric, a JD from University of Illinois Law School.

Gene is the author of two books – Contemporary American Foreign Policy: The Official Voice (1969) and Patterns of American Foreign Policy (1975) – and has completed the draft of his History of World Politics.