Cobb’s refusal to remove his fez, in the face of being held in contempt of court and jailed, symbolized the Black Nationalist’s belief that the existing institutions were inherently racist and the only option was to refuse to play by a set of rules stacked against them.

Cobb was released quietly in the late 1980s. He stayed with his closet friend, John Drake, at Drake’s house on Imperial Avenue but it only lasted two weeks. Cobb could not function; his mental condition was unstable,

As much admiration as Cobb generated, there was equally as much disdain for what he represented as a Muslim Black nationalist of the streets. Published in the Call & Post, Mrs. Marva Stein of Alcazar Hotel represented this wide-spread sentiment, especially in the White community, that morals were being attacked.

He was into jazz, too. As reported by Raoul Abdul of the Call & Post, during a Josephine Baker performance at the RKO Palace Theatre, he joined her in an “entertaining by-play across the footlights” after she spotted him in the front row and both exchanged Islamic greetings.