It was in that context that Mallory came into contact with the Nation of Islam. Mallory turned to anti-violence activism after her son’s father was murdered, eventually becoming the national director of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. “In that most difficult period of my life, it was the women of the Nation of Islam who supported me and I have always held them close to my heart for that reason,” Mallory wrote in a statement published on NewsOne on Wednesday.

She soon realized that all the women she knew who had lost loved ones to gun violence had also lived in poor, segregated neighborhoods, and she concluded that the circumstances that led to these deaths were systemic and not just individual. And in those neighborhoods, the Nation was present when others were not.

“The Nation of Islam was the place where most of the black men and women that I knew had been there and really had been reformed. Men particularly in my family, people who had been arrested, and people who had been through really troubled situations, I saw them cleaning themselves up and were successful,” Mallory told me. “I found that the Nation had been influential in helping them to turn their lives around.”

Mallory was surprised by the backlash to her presence at the Saviour’s Day event, in part because she’s been going to the annual Nation of Islam function since she was a child—her parents were activists. Although she is a Christian, she says it was common for her to work with the Nation of Islam on anti-violence initiatives, such as the NOI’s “Occupy the Corner” program, which involves members of the Fruit of Islam patrolling dangerous areas to prevent violence. In 1989, after the Fruit of Islam’s “Dopebuster” patrols proved successful in the Mayfair Housing projects, The Washington Post reported that other neighborhoods were clamoring for their help.

That reputation has endured; in 2012, Chicago’s first Jewish mayor, Rahm Emanuel, said that the Nation of Islam had a role to play in reducing violence in the city. “They have decided, the Nation of Islam, to help protect the community. And that’s an important ingredient, like all the other aspects of protecting a neighborhood.” Emanuel echoed what many black communities had long since concluded—the Nation can be the least bad of the available options, especially in a city like Chicago where the police retain a reputation for lawlessness and brutality in minority neighborhoods.

This is also where the resistance to condemning Farrakhan or the Nation can come from: a sense that despite the Nation’s many flaws, it is present for black people in America’s most deprived and segregated enclaves when the state itself is not present, to say nothing of those who demand its condemnation. Then there is the sense that while Farrakhan’s views are vile, he lacks the power or authority to enforce them. Denouncing the marginalized Farrakhan can seem ridiculous to those who feel like white people put their own Farrakhan in the White House.