Roy Innis

activist; organization executive

Personal Information

Born Roy Emile Alfredo Innis, June 6, 1934, in St. Croix, Virgin Islands; immigrated to the United States, 1947; son of Alexander (a police officer) and Georgianna Thomas Innis; married first wife, Violet (divorced); married Doris Funnye; children: Alexander (deceased), Roy (deceased), Cedric, Patricia, Corinne, Kwame, Niger, Kimathi.
Education: Attended City College of New York, 1952-56.
Military/Wartime Service: Served in U.S. Army, 1950-52.

Career

Vicks Chemical Company, research chemist, 1958-63; Montefiore Hospital, New York City, research assistant in cardiovascular research laboratory and hospital union official, 1963-67; Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), chairman of Harlem chapter, 1965-67, named associate national director, December 27, 1967, national director, 1968-81, and national chairman, 1981--. Resident fellow, Metropolitan Applied Research Center, New York City, 1967; Harlem Commonwealth Council, executive director, 1967-68; coeditor, Manhattan Tribune.

Life's Work

A controversial figure in the civil rights movement, Roy Innis has guided the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) since the summer of 1968. His stormy career has been marked by radical rhetoric, shifts in ideology, and financial and legal troubles. Nevertheless, his prominent position with CORE--an organization dedicated to the political and economic advancement of people of color--has established him as a significant figure on the front line of American activism.

Innis was born June 6, 1934, in St. Croix, Virgin Islands. He was six years old when his father died, but it was not until 1947 that he moved to the United States, following his mother, who was sending for her children as money became available. The shock of moving from the racially tolerant and predominantly black Virgin Islands to Harlem in New York City was tremendous. At that time discrimination against black Americans was commonplace, and the continually reinforced message of white supremacy led some blacks to question the intellect and competence of their own race. "My father was a cop [back in St. Croix]," Innis told Ebony, "the symbol of authority.... The judge was black and had a kind of basic confidence in the ability of black people. But I used to notice how Harlem blacks would be surprised if other blacks were smart. They seemed to feel that only whites were smart."

Innis attended the prestigious Stuyvesant High School in New York City, and in 1950, when he was 16 years old, he lied about his age and joined the U.S. Army. It was two years before his superiors found out he was underage and discharged him. On returning to New York, Innis earned his high school diploma and majored in chemistry at the City College of New York. Subsequently, he worked as a researcher for the Vicks Chemical Company and had three children with his first wife, Violet.

After his first marriage ended, Innis fell in love with and married civil rights activist Doris Funnye. Funnye was active in the Harlem chapter of CORE, an organization from which Innis had previously shied away. "Too many white people were directing traffic," he told Ebony . Because of Funnye, Innis joined CORE--first to be near her and later because he felt he could make a difference in the organization.

By 1963 he was one of the more active members of CORE's Harlem chapter. Later called "the very soul of the civil-rights movement" by Jesse Jackson, the Congress of Racial Equality had been founded in 1942 by six young Chicagoans as an interracial passive resistance organization. Led by longtime chairman James Farmer, CORE began by protesting discrimination in Chicago restaurants and grew to lead sit-ins at lunch counters in the South and sponsor the famous Freedom Rides that tested compliance with federal orders to desegregate bus lines.

While a member of CORE's Harlem chapter, Innis was part of a minority whose aims did not coincide with CORE's stated goal of integration. Innis and his allies sought to promote the notion of "economic competition" while devaluing the idea of integration for blacks. "When I first started hanging around CORE, I didn't dig the operation," he told Ebony. "I thought people didn't know what they were talking about. But I saw sincerity and a lot of energy and drive. I thought if you could harness it, it would be a useful force. I thought their ideology of integration was out of it. I was a black nationalist."

Innis tried to obtain control of CORE's Harlem chapter and ran for chairman several times before gaining the post in 1965 over the staunch objection of moderates. During his two years as head of the Harlem branch, he more than any other figure was instrumental in moving the organization from a strategy of nonviolent social change to a strategy of nationalistic self-defense.

In 1966 James Farmer retired from the post of national chairman amid charges that he was too conservative. Reflecting these sentiments, the CORE convention led by Innis and the Harlem chapter elected Floyd McKissick to the vacated position. McKissick moved CORE toward an all-black membership and eliminated the word "multiracial" from its constitution.

On December 27 of the following year, McKissick appointed Innis to the post of associate national director. Critics claimed that the appointment was illegal, since McKissick never consulted with CORE's decision-making body, the National Action Council. According to some observers, Innis had relied on both charisma and scare tactics to further his agenda while serving as chairman of the Harlem chapter.

But while Innis was moving upward in the CORE hierarchy, tragedy struck his family. On April 15, 1968, his 13-year-old son, who was playing with his brother outside a Bronx apartment house a short distance from his mother's house, was shot by an irate postal worker. "It was a very sad thing to have to explain to a father," the detective who informed Innis of the shooting told the New York Times . "The kids were just playing. They were just horsing around."

On July 8 of the same year, Chairman McKissick, himself under fire from CORE's more radical elements, took a leave of absence from the chairmanship. As associate national director, Innis assumed power, pledging to tighten up the organization and give it direction. According to the Saturday Review, he also proclaimed CORE "once and for all ... a black nationalist organization." Disillusioned with the minimal progress made after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and with failed efforts to desegregate schools in America's cities, Innis concluded: "Integration as an end in itself is as dead as a doornail."

At the CORE convention the following September, 47 disgruntled delegates walked out before others formally elected Innis and adopted a new constitution that centralized power and advocated black nationalism. According to the New York Times, Innis remarked: "For the first time, CORE is one team working together.... We are moving away from separate little baronies."

Although the turn to black nationalism led to a severe decline in membership--making CORE what Ebony called "a shadow of its former self"--Innis's early leadership of the organization was marked by seemingly dramatic action. He founded the Harlem Commonwealth Council, an agency designed to create black-owned businesses and black-directed economic institutions in Harlem, and he served as co-editor of the Manhattan Tribune, a weekly New York tabloid stressing the affairs of Harlem and the upper West Side.

His black nationalist viewpoint converged with conservative ideas and received wide play in conservative magazines such as National Review and U.S. News & World Report. Innis explained black nationalism in Life as "the philosophy of self-determination, the philosophy of an oppressed people.... One solution to such oppression is assimilation--in essence, the loss of one's self.... That won't work for us. We have to devise a philosophy applicable to our own dilemma. We must rehabilitate blacks as people. We must control the institutions in our areas."

"Integration should not be an end in itself," Innis stated in U.S. News & World Report . "It should be a means to an end--toward true equality and justice. But if it's obvious that integration is not achieving those ends, then you seek other means." An advocate of community power, Innis told the magazine after the 1968 presidential election: "[Richard M.] Nixon should support the concept of community control of schools, welfare, sanitation, fire, police, health and hospitals and all other vital institutions operating in the so-called ghettos." Innis's view of school desegregation coincided with both his desire for community control and the philosophy of segregationists. "I say let us create two districts--one predominantly white and one predominantly black--where you now have one district," he was quoted as saying in U.S. News & World Report. "Each district will create its own board to manage the school system. Each will hire a superintendent. Each will be autonomous and truly equal."

But while Innis was making a splash with his ideas, some members of CORE were dropping out, charging that he was running the organization as a one-man show. In addition, Innis became involved in questionable affairs that many considered beyond the realm of CORE's stated goals. In 1973 Innis toured Uganda and visited murderous dictator Idi Amin, conferring upon him a life membership in CORE. On returning to the United States, Innis told the Saturday Review: "General Amin will lead a liberation army to free those parts of Africa still under the rule of white imperialists." Innis's interest in African affairs was not limited to Uganda. In 1976 he claimed to have recruited between 300 and 1,000 black American veterans to fight as mercenaries in the Angolan civil war on the side supported by western countries and South Africa. Denounced as an "anti-African reactionary group," by the Organization of African Unity, CORE never actually sent soldiers to Africa.

Innis defended his junkets to Angola and Uganda as vital to solving the problems of oppressed people of color throughout the world. When questioned about his use of CORE funds for activities that went beyond the interests of the organization, the Saturday Review reported that he answered: "The monies of CORE are my money and CORE is my organization and I'll run it the way I see fit."

In December of 1978, New York State assistant attorney general William Lee charged Innis and two of his subordinates with misuse of charitable contributions. According to the Saturday Review, the three were accused of unlawful fund-raising practices, maintaining nonexistent "paper programs," putting the organization's funds to questionable use, and perpetuating Innis's one-man directorship of CORE. Specifically, the affidavit stated that CORE employed a "technique of fear and apprehension" in soliciting funds for its Equal Opportunity Journal and added that CORE had become "an organization whose sole raison d'etre had degenerated to the acquisition of more and more money, none of which ever reached the intended beneficiaries, the disadvantaged minority members."

Harry Zehner of the Saturday Review went on to claim that though the organization was raising in excess of four million dollars a year from corporate contributions, its editorial, community renewal, child day care, prison reform, tutorial reading, media communication, job bank, housing, employment referral, and Operation Self Help programs had "no more than paper existence."

Following the filing of charges, an injunction preventing CORE from raising funds was filed. The case, however, never went to trial, and on December 30, 1981, CORE and the state attorney general reached an out-of-court settlement that did not require CORE to admit any wrongdoing but did require Innis to contribute $35,000 to the organization over the following three years.

In November of 1980, in the midst of Innis's financial and legal troubles, a group of 200 dissident CORE members met in Columbia, South Carolina, and voted to dismiss him from the post of national director. According to the New York Times, CORE member and South Carolina state representative Theo Mitchell said the organization "ha[d] been used for personal gain, egotism and grandiose plans." The same meeting elected Waverly Yates, head of CORE's Washington office and one of the organization's founders, to replace Innis. When Innis refused to hand over the chairmanship, Yates and others filed a lawsuit that was ultimately ruled in Innis's favor.

While Innis's political philosophy had always been marked by conservative tendencies, he took an overt swing to the right during the 1980s. In October of 1984 he took the stand as a character witness for perennial right-wing presidential candidate Lyndon La Rouche, who was eventually convicted of tax evasion. The following month he urged African Americans to desert Democrat Walter Mondale's presidential candidacy, saying black voters "had nothing to lose and everything to gain" by supporting Republican candidate Ronald Reagan over Mondale. "The successful desegregation of the Republican Party," he told the New York Times "can be one of the most important and healthy political developments for the black community and for the country at large."

Looking to exploit his popularity on the political right, Innis told a 1985 New York Republican gathering that he would run for a Brooklyn seat in the House of Representatives the following year and that, though politics necessitated he run as a Democrat, he would sit with the Republicans if he won. A month before the election--which he lost--the IRS fined him $56,000 in back taxes plus $28,000 in civil fraud penalties. According to the Wall Street Journal, "The IRS ... claimed he got $116,000 in unreported income from CORE in 1975 and 1976, [which] he allegedly spent ... on travel, apartment rent, jewelry, furniture, entertainment, and other personal items."

Innis gained considerable exposure in 1988 when his appearances on television talk shows degenerated into bizarre skirmishes. On August 9 of that year, he appeared with the controversial Reverend Al Sharpton in a taping of the Morton Downey Jr. Show. When Sharpton questioned Innis's abilities and authority as a black leader, a shouting match began. The show's producer told the Chicago Tribune: "Innis stood up and was basically telling Sharpton to let him speak.... [He] towered over him." Then, the story went on, "as the rotund Sharpton started to get up, Innis pushed him. Rev. Sharpton fell into the chair and toppled over backward onto the floor."

In November of the same year, Innis appeared with white-supremacist Tom Metzger on the Geraldo Rivera Show. According to the New York Times, Innis attacked Metzger after Metzger offended him with an inflammatory, racially motivated remark. A scuffle ensued, and soon members of the audience joined in, with chairs, punches, and insults being hurled in all directions. Later, Innis told the Times, "I was just trying to cool things down quickly and end the verbal assault against me. I wanted to avoid a Sharpton-like confrontation."

In the late 1980s, Innis focused on issues in addition to racism that affected the black community. Crime became an important topic. In a Christian Science Monitor interview, he noted, "Crime is bigger and more destructive than racism.... Crime affects our community, its business, education, jobs, health. Senior citizens can't walk the streets without endangering their health."

Innis remained in the public eye throughout the early 1990s. In a 1991 Wall Street Journal editorial, "Gun Control Sprouts From Racist Soil," he argued that banning handguns would keep guns out of the hands of black families in high crime areas who needed protection. He stated in an interview with Robert Santiago for Emerge that "CORE is the only group with the courage to admit the obvious--that black folks, minority folks, folks in high-crime areas need to arm themselves legally."

All controversy aside, Innis continues to be an important voice on the American civil rights scene. He, along with a group of other prominent African American leaders, was called to the White House as a consultant after the Los Angeles riots of 1992, linked to anger about perceived police brutality toward blacks. He commented in the Emerge interview that CORE's agenda for the future involves battling the sources and effects of crime within the black community: "CORE and Roy Innis were the first to jump on the question of black crime.... Our No. 1 problem today is black crime. If the white man goes away tonight, we still have black crime."

Further Reading

Sources

• Chicago Tribune, August 10, 1988.
• Christian Science Monitor, March 26, 1987.
• Ebony, October 1969.
• Emerge, August 1992, p. 11.
• Life, December 13, 1968.
• National Review, February 11, 1969.
• New York Times, July 24, 1966; April 16, 1968; June 26, 1968; November 14, 1968; April 1, 1980; November 23, 1980; December 31, 1981; November 4, 1984; November 25, 1985; November 4, 1988.
• Saturday Review, April 28, 1979.
• U.S. News & World Report, November 25, 1968; March 2, 1970.
• Village Voice, July 12, 1988.
• Wall Street Journal, October 8, 1986; November 21, 1991.

— Jordan Wankoff

Roy Innis, National Chairman Congress of Racial Equality.

Roy Emile Alfredo Innis (born June 6, 1934, in St. Croix, Virgin Islands) has been National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality (also known as CORE) since his election to the position in 1968.

One of his sons, Niger Innis also serves the Congress of Racial Equality as its National Spokesman.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Early civil rights years 3 CORE 4 Black nationalism 5 Criminal justice 6 Controversy 7 Political campaigns 8 References 9 External links

Early life

In 1946 Innis moved with his mother from the U.S. Virgin Islands to New York City, where he graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1952.^[1] At age 16, Innis joined the U.S. Army, and at age 18 he received an honorable discharge. He entered a four-year program in chemistry at the City College of New York. He subsequently held positions as a research chemist at Vick Chemical Company and Montefiore Hospital.^[2]

Early civil rights years

Innis joined CORE’s Harlem chapter in 1963. In 1964 he was elected Chairman of the chapter’s education committee and advocated community-controlled education and black empowerment. In 1965, he was elected Chairman of Harlem CORE, after which he campaigned for the establishment of an independent Board of Education for Harlem.

In the spring of 1967, Innis was appointed the first resident fellow at the Metropolitan Applied Research Center (MARC), headed by Dr. Kenneth Clark. In the summer of 1967, he was elected Second National Vice-Chairman of CORE. Also in 1967, Innis became the first Executive Director of the Harlem Commonwealth Council (HCC), an investment corporation whose long-term goal was to create independence and stability in Harlem. During the same period, he was the co-editor and founder of the Manhattan Tribune Newspaper.

CORE

Innis was elected National Chairman of CORE in 1968, and has held the position ever since. Initially Innis, headed the organization in a strong campaign of Black Nationalism. However, he subsequently became prominent as a conservative activist. CORE supported the presidential candidacy of Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972.

Black nationalism

Innis drafted the Community Self-Determination Act of 1968 and garnered bipartisan sponsorship of this bill by one-third of the U.S. Senate and over 50 congressmen. This was the first time in U.S. history that a bill drafted by a black organization was introduced into the United States Congress.

In the debate over school integration, Innis offered an alternative plan consisting of community control of educational institutions. As part of this effort, in October 1970, CORE filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in connection with Swann vs the Charlotte Mackleburg Board of Education.

Innis and a CORE delegation toured seven African countries in 1971. He met with several heads of state, including Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, Liberia’s William Tolbert and Uganda's Idi Amin, who was awarded a life membership of CORE ^[3]. In 1973 he became the first American to attend the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in an official capacity.

In 1973 Innis participated in a televised debate with Nobel-winning physicist William Shockley on the topic of black genetic inferiority.

Criminal justice

Innis has long been active in criminal justice matters, including debate over gun control and the Second Amendment. He is a current board member of the National Rifle Association.^[4][5]

A supporter of victims' rights, he has been involved in cases such as: the "subway gunman," Bernhard Goetz; "subway token booth clerk", James Grimes; the "candyman good Samaritan", Andy Fredericks; the "black Bernie Goetz", Austin Weeks; and the accused "remember me subway shooter" Clemente Jackson. Some of his activities include: investigating and exposing the Tawana Brawley hoax; overseeing and participating in a citizen’s anti-drug campaign, "One Street At A Time".^{[citation needed]}

Innis has lost two of his sons to criminal gun violence. His first son, Roy Innis, Jr., at the age of 13 in 1968. His next oldest son Alexander, 26, was shot and slain in 1982.^[6]

Controversy

He was noted for starting two televised scuffles in 1988, one on Geraldo against white supremacists, particularly Tom Metzger's son John, and another on The Morton Downey Jr. Show against Reverend Al Sharpton, when Sharpton was pushed over in his chair by Innis.

Political campaigns

In 1986 Innis challenged incumbent Major Owens in the Democratic primary for the 12th Congressional District, representing Brooklyn. He was defeated by a three-to-one margin.

In the 1993 New York City Democratic Party mayoral primary, Innis challenged incumbent David Dinkins, the first African-American to hold the office. Given his conservative positions on the issues, he explained that "the Democratic Party is the only game in town. It's unfortunate that we have a corrupt one-party, one ideology system in New York City, and I'd like to change that. But being a Democrat doesn't mean you have to be a fool." During his own campaign, Innis also appeared at fundraising events for the Republican candidate Rudolph Giuliani. Innis received 25% of the vote in the four-way race with his highest totals came in white areas and his lowest in black Assembly districts. Dinkins lost to Giuliani in the general election.

In February 1994, his son Niger, who ran his primary campaign, suggested that Innis would also challenge incumbent governor Mario Cuomo in the Democratic primary.

In 1998, Innis joined the Libertarian Party and gave serious consideration to running for Governor of New York as the party's candidate that year. He ultimately decided against running, citing time restrictions related to his duties with CORE . ^[7]

Innis served as New York State Chair in Alan Keyes's 2000 presidential campaign.^[8]

Innis is noted for his endorsement of perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche.^[9]

References

1. ^ Hicks, Jonathan (1993-05-25). "Innis Campaign for Mayor: A Quixotic Quest?". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CEFD8173AF936A15756C0A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print. Retrieved 2007-11-02. 
2. ^ "Roy Innis". http://www.core-online.org/Staff/roy.htm. Retrieved 2007-11-02. 
3. ^ "Mayoral Race Is Overshadowed In New York Primary Tomorrow - New York Times". http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE6DE1E30F930A2575AC0A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2. Retrieved 2007-12-13. 
4. ^ "'Ricochet' Goes Behind Scenes of Gun Lobby". National Public Radio. 2007-11-15. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16324652&ft=1&f=5. Retrieved 2007-11-15. 
5. ^ Roy Innis re-elected to NRA Board http://www.nrawinningteam.com/bios99/innis.html
6. ^ "THE CITY; 2d Innis Son Slain". New York Times. 1982-02-23. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03E4DE133BF930A15751C0A964948260. Retrieved 2007-11-02. 
7. ^ "Innis passes on NY governor's run; mulls New York mayor race in 2001". May 1998. http://www.lp.org/lpn/9805-Innis.html. Retrieved 2007-11-02. 
8. ^ "Roy & Niger Innis Endorse Alan Keyes for President of the United States.". Press release. 2000-02-11. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-59364233.html. 
9. ^ Roy Innis." Civil Rights in the United States. 2 vols. Macmillan Reference USA, 2000. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/History/ accessdate: 2009-10-13

External links

• CORE's Official Website

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