Sonny Liston Children?

Check out Paul Gallender's book. The Real Story Behind the Ali Liston Fights, warning it is convoluted at times. Sonny had a number of children out of wedlock, and it appears that his wife Geraldine accepted as part of who Sonny was. The boy in question was apparently was Sonny's who was born out of wedlock that he and Geraldine adopted.

http://www.sonnyliston.net/copy of Page9.html

 

I recall a Ring Magazine article from the late '60s entitled "Don't Shed Any Tears for 'Poor' Sonny Liston." The article included a statement that he had a grown daughter, which was used in an attempt to ascertain Liston's true age. That is the only reference I have seen in regard to the question of Liston children.

 

He has a son I believe named Bill Whitman who lives in Philadelphia.

 

Ask that mystic woman to ask Sonny about it.
Paul Gallender says she's legit.

 

Bill Wingate

 

I doubt the NOI were in the business of kidnapping 'civilians'.

Sure, they had some bad apples among them, probably had some very shady characters who were involved in some very shady stuff, either for the NOI itself or, more likely, for the FBI etc.
But that would have been business among the underworld of political militants and govenment operatives.

Kidnapping Liston's wife and kid (if the kid even exists) would make no sense.
That would be risking a huge PR disaster, presumably to secure a very limited PR gain.

 

I think the N.O.I. was very capable of doing that.
They were a collection of murderous thugs.
The N.O.I. was fresh from assassinating Malcolm X and setting fire to Ali's apartment, the same day, as a warning. Ali and Malcolm had been best friends.

Yes, they could have kidnapped Liston's wife and kid.
Whether they did or not, I have no idea.

 

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Can anyone give us a rundown on Gallender's book. From the excerpts Ive read and the stuff of his Ive read on the internet quite a lot of it sounds like pure unsubstantiated bull**** that is at best rumor and at worst made up. Id be curious to hear others' thoughts.

 

The Nation of Islam was extremely dangerous. In 1972, members of the Philadelphia mosque broke into a home owned by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and murdered an entire family of people living there, including drowning a newborn. The family belonged to a guy named Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, who had been a national secretary for the Nation of Islam before leaving. He wrote an article condemning Elijah Muhammad, and the article was apparently the reason behind the attack. The attack was led by members of the Philadelphia NOI mosque, which was known as one of the "enforcer" branches (meaning it had the most violent criminals from prison as members). The leader of that mosque was Jeremiah Shabazz, who was part of Muhammad Ali's entourage.

A few years later, Khaalis and some of his followers took 100 hostages in three buildings in Washington, D.C., and held them for days, and he demanded the killers of his family who had been arrested be sent to him so he could execute them. He also demanded that Muhammad Ali (who at the time was the heavyweight champion) and Elijah Muhammad's son be brought to him. (Presumably so he could kill them, too.) But they obviously weren't.

So, kidnapping probably would've been seen as minor compared to executing women and children and drowning babies.

 

I wasn't aware of that.
I was aware that when Elijah Muhammad died, Ali went with the old man's son because of a long running feud Ali had with Farrakhan.
That probably would have marked him for extermination.

Because they were a bunch of Blacks, the NOI didn't get the full exposure they should have gotten from the press.

 

All I know about it is Gallender's claim that the N.O.I. held Liston's wife and son hostage in a hotel room to ensure Liston threw the Lewiston fight.
He claims he learned this from interviews with Geraldine Liston, Liston's son and other people who knew of it.

No idea if it is true or not.
It may be. It would have been very easy for them to do.

 

This seems like something that would have been very easy to verify. The press were always looking for juicy soundbites or human interest pieces from wives and family the day of or day after. Id have to see some solid proof of this especially considering it took 50 years to come out. People have been looking for years for excuses for Liston and the bottom line was he just wasn't as good as Ali. He tried his hardest in the firsts fight to the point of possibly tainting his gloves to win and still couldn't, injury or not. In the second fight whether you agree that he went down legitimately or not the fact remains that he got up and was fighting when Walcott, not Liston, through his own ineptitude allowed the fight to stop and turned it into a circus. It was based on that that all of the excuses arose and I find the leap to Liston's family having been kidnapped and held hostage highly dubious. I don't doubt that the NOI could do something like this I just doubt the whys, why-fors, and overall veracity of it.