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Funnye's death at the time was seen as suspicious for two main reasons: he was a former navigator in the Air Force and an experienced pilot.
Many of the members of Harlem CORE who were interviewed for this research have admitted that while they were initially suspicious, they have come to accept his death as accidental. I have yet to come across any information that would point to his death being anything other than accidental. There may be something in the FBI's unreleased files that reveal something different. That being said, sometimes such incidents are not a conspiracy.
The Trouble with Roy Innis
It has been suggested by many members of CORE and other activists of the time, including members of the Black Panthers and the African Nationalist Pioneer Movement, that national director
The charges are beyond damning. In this community, it is the worst that could be said about an activist other than they murdered a fellow activist.
In his own defense, Innis has claimed the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have conspired to bring both him and CORE down. It should be noted that it was a COINTELPRO tactic to portray Black leaders as being traitors. According to COINTELPRO internal documents, the program intentionally spread rumors that Stokely Carmichael, the head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was a CIA agent in order to not just discredit him but to hopefully have him assassinated by his own people.
Innis had some experience with being defamed. He had over the years been brought up on various charges both locally and in various states, some of which were spurious, some of which had validity. For example, after having been arrested in 1966 for leading a demonstration against the 35th precinct in Harlem, Innis was arrested on narcotics charges because the officers found hypodermic needles and what they claimed were barbiturates in his pockets. The problem with that was he worked at the time as a biomedical technician at a hospital and the drugs were actually tranquilizers and antibiotics. This should be seen as an attempt to discredit Innis as a civil rights leader. In 1981, he was again arrested for beating up a man who had broken into his car and tried to steal his radio in front of CORE's headquarters. This should be seen as a man legitimately protecting his property that may have gone a little too far in punishing the criminal.
However, in 1979, he was brought up on charges in three different states for misappropriation of funds, fraud, and deceptive fund raising charges. All charges were eventually settled out of court. During this time, various stories came out in the press of Innis having ordered the beatings and attempted assassinations of various members of CORE, including Harlem CORE's James Howard. These charges were later corroborated by officials from CORE including his own head of security, Marvin Peay.
James Farmer went so far as to accuse Innis of engaging in 'Black Mafia' type activities. In 1976, Farmer officially quit CORE over Innis' attempts to hire African American mercenaries to fight in the Angolan civil war on behalf of the Union for the Total Independence for Angola (UNITA). Leaders from the African National Conference and the Organization of African Unity openly questioned Innis' motives since UNITA was aligned with the U.S. and South Africa's apartheid regime. Even the Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, who Innis had made a honorary member of CORE, accused him of being a spy for U.S. intelligence. Former head of the National Association for Black Journalists and Newsday editor Les Payne went on record as saying Innis was "flaking for the CIA". (9)
The historian John Henrik Clarke once noted, "Roy Innis is bought and paid for." This speaks to the other reason for the accusations of Innis being an agent - the lack of an explanation for the sharp right turn taken and his alliances with so many right wing conservative groups and leaders, including presidents George Bush and Ronald Reagan, General Westmoreland (commander U.S. miltary operations during Vietnam War) and NYC mayor Rudy Guiliani. Under his direction, CORE "ceased to be a watchdog against civil rights abuses but has become a collaborator, in many instances with the agents of abuse" (10).
Innis was not the only one to side with the Republicans and right wing conservatives of this country. Floyd McKissick, who at first was a vicious critic of President Nixon, by 1972 became one of his biggest supporters on the Black left. That same year, he also received a fourteen million dollar grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for his Soul City project in North Carolina. James Farmer, who was never a supporter of Nixon, did accept a position in his administration as an assistant secretary for the Health, Education and Welfare Department. Alan Gartner of CORE's national office worked for him as a consultant before Farmer quit the position after less than two years.
Ironically, the FBI files on Farmer and his successor Floyd McKissick are quite extensive.
At this point in the research, I still have not seen any documents or interviewed anyone who has proof that Roy Innis was indeed working for any law enforcement or intelligence agency. According to veteran investigative journalist Jack Anderson, such a file does indeed exist.