Edition: U.S. / Global

Roy Innis Defines Himself and Politics

Published: September 22, 1996

Roy Innis is against school busing, affirmative action and gun control. He says ''political correctness'' is an extremely dangerous philosophy, and he defines himself as the biggest hawk on crime in America today.

Mr. Innis is the high-profile national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, and one of the leading voices of the small but growing number of black conservatives in the United States. His strong views on subjects ranging from the Westchester Community College board of trustees to Bernhard H. Goetz are steeped in what he calls pragmatic conservatism.

''My brand of conservatism is the traditional, most decent and rational expression of the American personality,'' he said. ''I believe that the success of America has been the application of pragmatism in society, and that view is particularly unfashionable in the civil rights movement.''

Pragmatism is defined by Webster as a practical approach to problems and affairs, but Mr. Innis defines it as ''the opposite of counting angels on the head of a pin.''

Although Mr. Innis finds himself philosophically at odds with many civil rights leaders today, he is the leader of CORE, one of the largest and oldest civil rights organizations in the country. CORE was formed in 1942 in Chicago and has more than 100 offices. They deal with discrimination in employment and housing, assist law enforcement agencies and provide job training for single parents receiving welfare. Jim Martin, deputy to Mr. Innis, said: ''CORE runs the gamut from hard-line conservatives to socialists. We talk with everyone, and we respect everyone.''

When Mr. Innis joined CORE in the 1950's, he said he did so because it was the only way to spend time with his girlfriend, who was very active in CORE in Harlem. At the time the organization was, Mr. Innis said, mostly white and socialist, and he was the strategist of the faction that was not socialist. His political leanings developed when he opposed busing as a means of accomplishing desegregation.

''You cannot define desegregation as the idea that black kids can't learn outside the presence of white kids, which is what advocates of busing are saying,'' he said. ''Desegregation is taking control of the flow of money and power within a school district by the community.''

Mr. Innis, 62, emigrated from St. Croix in the Virgin Islands to Harlem in 1947. Coming from a one-room schoolhouse, which had only black students and teachers, he entered school in Harlem where he found himself two grades ahead academically.

Although his career has been in civil rights, he started as a chemist for the Walker Vitamin Company in Mount Vernon, which was eventually bought by Vicks. He moved to Pelham Manor from Harlem in 1988 not long after his only other son was killed in a robbery.

''They can't keep telling lies about why people move away from the ghetto,'' he said. ''Blacks move away for the same reason whites do, safety.'' And he said that was how blacks ''ended up in New Rochelle and Mount Vernon, but when whites do the same thing it's called racism.''

Mr. Innis said he believes that affirmative action and many social programs are the result of a mix of hysteria created by black political leaders and the paranoid guilt of white liberals. He asserted that statistics prove that the recent reports of church burnings in the South were created by this mixture and fueled by what he calls a gullible news media.

''This so-called epidemic of black church burnings by whites is a fraud,'' he said. ''There were fewer than 100 churches that burned down between 1995 and 1996, and 46 of them were white churches. Why is there such hysteria? Because someone needed to create a new black-white disease, a new crisis.''

Mr. Innis has been a strong supporter of Mr. Goetz, who shot four black youths on the subway in 1984, contending it was self-defense because they were trying to mug him. Having lost two sons to street crime -- the other son was killed in crossfire in a gun battle in the south Bronx -- Mr. Innis said he believed that by disarming law-abiding citizens the government aids and abets crime. He said he was outraged by a $43 million jury award in a civil suit to Darrell Cabey, one of the men who was shot by Mr. Goetz and left paralyzed and brain damaged.

Mr. Innis's son Niger, 26, was recently turned down for a position on the Westchester Community College board of trustees. Both men contend that a group of blacks led by Ernest E. Davis, who was then a college trustee but is now Mayor of Mount Vernon, lobbied against Niger Innis because he did not share their political ideology. Mayor Davis could not be reached for comment.

''That gang on the board would have had no problem with him if he was radical and wild,'' Mr. Innis said. ''The Republicans on the board were totally spineless, acquiescing to the idea that left-wing, liberal Democrats are the only example for a young black man.''

Niger Innis has not given up hope of a position on the board, however. He said he has received indications of support from board members willing to back him now that Mr. Davis is no longer a member. His father blamed the media for his son's not being elected. ''Any black can get on television if he talks about victimization,'' he said. ''That is why you see black politicians apologizing to the criminal element.''

Mr. Innis said he believed pressure to conform for black leaders is the reason Retired Gen. Colin L. Powell did not become a part of the Republican ticket for the 1996 Presidential election. ''Powell is afraid to bite the bullet because he knows what will be expected of him,'' he said. ''He is one of the most admired men in America by both blacks and whites. He has no restrictions on himself. His only restrictions are internal.''

Photo: Roy Innis, national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality and a Pelham Manor resident. (Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times, 1993)