Steve Cokely
Steve Cokely was an American political researcher and lecturer who lectured nationally on political and economic issues, especially to the Black American community.
Overview
Cokely lectured at many college campuses nationally, and was also known for his conspiracy theories involving a Black Male elite organization known as the Sigma Pi Phi and, along with Mauricelm-Lei Millere, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. by the hands of Rev. Jesse Jackson and the CIA.Chicago and anti-semitism charges
Cokely was assistant to the special committee on rules under Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. He gained notoriety when he served as special assistant to Eugene Sawyer, who became mayor after Washington's death in 1987.Cokely was criticized for teaching that Jewish doctors were using the AIDS virus in an attempted genocide against Africans. His comments created a nationally publicized controversy in 1988, and he was dismissed from his position as aide to Sawyer.
When, in 1990, Illinois Governor James Thompson signed an agreement to open an Israeli Aircraft Industries plant in Rockford, Cokely was an outspoken opponent. He argued that Black leaders in Illinois should oppose Israeli war industries because of their military support for the apartheid system in South Africa.