In June, 1971, Graydon got into a shoot out with the Dennis brothers outside of Graydon’s night club, the Afro-American club, in which he killed one brother, shot another and then was shot by the third brother with a shotgun. The club had previously been raided by the police and Graydon accused of using it for gambling. Despite these problems, Graydon was elected as a delegate for Nassau County at the 1972 National Black Political Convention. He was convicted of first degree manslaughter in 1972 and had begun serving his ten year sentence when a new trail was ordered. He was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and given five years probation.

Mel Jackson was also indicted for 2nd degree robbery and 2nd degree unlawful imprisonment in 1972. After a dispute over the hiring of a new school superintendent, a school board member charged he was held prisoner and his tape recorder taken from him at a meeting by a group of Blacks led by Jackson. He also stated his complaint was an attempt to ‘restrain’ Jackson’s activism. The incident is less one of criminality and more an example of how CORE members were becoming more aggressively disruptive at events in order to bring attention to their cause.

Jackson had also been expanding on the program he helped create for LI CORE. His Leadership Training Institute, independent of CORE but still based at Hofstra, had branched out to at least four other cities across the country by February, 1973.

The 1970's and On
While newspaper coverage slowed as the 1970’s continued, Long Island CORE chapters were still heavily involved in school, police brutality and employment issues. Its members continued to gain significant positions. In 1976, Alvin Petrus was named chairman of the county youth board for Nassau. Harold Russell of Westbury CORE was teaching psychology at CW Post College.

Lynch from 1978-81 ran the Alliance for Minority Group leaders. He had been an associate professor at Stony Brook/SUNY by 1975 but continued rocking the boat from within by publicly accusing the college of racism. Herman Washington also became an associate professor and eventually his department’s chair at Laguardia Community College/CUNY. He became the first Black to run for an assembly district seat in Nassau and Suffolk counties. In 1980, Irwin Quintyne also unsuccessfully ran for an assembly district seat.

Quintyne remained chairman of Suffolk County CORE all throughout the 1970’s. When he stated in the press the chapter supported CORE as Innis was being charged with misuse of funds in 1978, Dan Hester, still LI CORE chairman, was reportedly unavailable for comment. LI CORE had been ordered to change its name to Nassau CORE, which says something about the position of Quintyne and his chapter at the time compared to LI CORE as seen by national office. As the Northeast Regional director, he suspended LI CORE in 1980 for opposing the national office. Its chairman, a social worker named Rashidi Khalfini, also called for a national convention as had many supporters of the effort led by former national directors James Farmer and Floyd Mckissick to take CORE back.

The Leadership Training Institute, which at different points grew to include a job training and at least two group homes for wayward youths still exists in Long Island and as of 2013 is still headed by Mel Jackson.