Controversial Actions and Statements:

On October 25, 2011, Innis described 2012 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain as “an idea that was trying to be expressed for a long time by black America but was stifled by the left-wing establishment.”

On January 25, 2011, Innis rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange “to highlight the 25th anniversary of the observance of the Martin Luther King holiday.” Innis was joined by FOX Business News Anchor Charles Payne.

On March 18, 2008, Innis spoke at a press conference held by the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity prior to testifying before the Wisconsin state legislature on climate change. Innis said, “The economic crisis we are in now, can be solved with just letting people know the facts. Let them know that the right thing to do is not what they have been doing, which is going along with the environmentalist radicals … Ordinary people are good people, they want to do the right thing. Unfortunately we have sat idly by and have allowed them to think the right thing is to follow the radical environmentalists … It is crazy that we have environmental policies that prevent us from using some of the best resources we have. We have, on a per capita basis, more coal than anyone else in the world. We have a lot of gas. And we have a lot of petroleum too—up in ANWR [Artic National Wildlife Refuge] and the coastal areas. We are a rich country, rich in resources, rich in energy, potential energy, and we have laws that prevent us from maximizing it.” Americans for Prosperity is a corporate-backed “astroturf” organization that promotes Republican and corporate interests. President Obama has criticized the group by saying, “Right now all around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates all across the country. And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don't know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation. You don't know if it’s a big oil company, or a big bank.”

In 2007, Duane Chapman (aka Dog the Bounty Hunter) courted controversy after a racist voicemail he left on his son’s answering machine became public. Referring to son Tucker’s girlfriend, Dog said, “It's not because she's black, it's because we use the word nigger sometimes here. I'm not gonna take a chance ever in life of losing everything I've worked for for 30 years because some fucking nigger heard us say nigger and turned us in to the Enquirer magazine. Our career is over! I'm not taking that chance at all! Never in life! Never! Never! If Lyssa [Dog's daughter] was dating a nigger, we would all say 'fuck you!' And you know that.” Innis first called for Dog’s show to be taken off the air, but then told the New York Sun, “Like many that heard the comments made by Duane 'the Dog' Chapman without the proper context, I was offended and outraged. After meeting with him and his wife, Beth, and hearing his side of the story, we realized that the controversy had unjustly spiraled out of control without context.” Chapman later attended CORE’s 2008 Martin Luther King Dinner and presented Innis with a portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Chapman has called Innis a “good friend”

A former CORE fundraiser said that the organization raised money under Innis’ direction in 2002 under the pretense of “welfare reform” and used it to support conservative causes. The fundraiser called this development scheme a “racial hustle.”

Innis called conservative radio host Bob Grant personally to invite him to attend a 1998 dinner honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. Grant is infamous for his racist statements, which include the following remark: “They're not satisfied with every third street being M.L. King Boulevard, you know, named after that scumbag Marty." Grant has said he and Innis “have been good friends for many years.”

1n 1988, Innis defended sports commentator Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, who was fired from a number of jobs after claiming that African Americans were better athletes because of slave breeding. "Jimmy the Greek spoke the truth," Innis said.

Innis offered to fund the legal defense of the then-fugitive “Death Wish” gunman, a white man who shot four black teenagers who tried to rob him of $5 on a subway train on December 22, 1984. The gunman was later to be revealed to be Bernard Goetz, who Innis called, “the avenger for all of us.” Innis also called for a "volunteer peace officer" force of armed civilians to roam the streets of New York City. “After enough criminals get blasted, they will conclude that crime does not pay, he said. "Some black man ought to have done what [Goetz] did long before. I wish it had been me.

Innis utilized the CORE infrastructure to falsely accuse a man of being responsible for the “Atlanta Child Murders” in April 1981. Innis threatened his supporters would “make the collar” if the police did not detain the man, who was later dismissed as a possible suspect. An editorial published in The Bulletin, an Oregon newspaper, accused Innis of using his claim to have broken the serial killer case as a ploy to “solidify himself as the head of CORE” during a “serious leadership fight and membership fight.”

In 1976, Innis recruited a 600-man “peace brigade” to support the forces of Jonas Savimbi’s apartheid-backed UNITA rebel organization in Angola. U.S. intelligence sources indicated that Innis’ men—most of whom were combat veterans—were actually mercenaries recruited to fight in the Angolan civil war. The brigade was to work under the mandate of the Organization of African Unity, which was led by Ugandan dictator and UNITA supporter Idi Amin. Human Rights Watch described UNITA as “a rebel group led by Jonas Savimbi, [that] killed, abducted, and terrorized civilians with impunity.” The United States Institute of Peace wrote that “Savimbi is indeed responsible for a litany of crimes against humanity.” UNITA employed child soldiers throughout the Angolan Civil War, which lasted from 1975 to 2002.

In 1971, on the topic of integration, Innis said, “In America today, there are two kinds of black people—the field hand blacks and the house niggers. We of CORE, the nationalists—are the field hand blacks. The integrationists are house niggers.”