Former representative in the Louisiana House, and candidate for U.S. Senate, in addition to being a former Grand Wizard for the Ku Klux Klan. More recently he has been bilking his contributors to pay his gambling debts, pleading guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion in December 2002. Duke can no longer hold public office.
| 13 Jul 1950 |
David Duke born, Tulsa OK. |
| 1967 |
Joins the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan at the age of 17. |
| 1970 |
Founds the White Youth Alliance while a student at Louisiana State University. From a 1997 Interview with Duke by Stormfront: "I did picket one time, wore a swastika once in my life. I picketed William Kunstler at Tulane University and that's the only instance in my life that I ever did that." |
| 1971 |
Duke visits his father, an engineer who worked in the State Department, in Laos, for a number of months. He spends some of this time teaching English to Laotian officers. Starting from 1989 onward, Duke refashions this time as actual military missions behind enemy lines in speeches and fundraising materials. |
| 1974 |
Duke graduates from Louisiana State University with a BA in History. He had taken time off from his college career for various activist work involving Neo-Nazis. |
| 1974 |
Duke becomes National Director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. |
| 23 Apr 1975 |
The Witchita Sun quotes David Duke as saying: "White people don't need a law against rape, but if you fill this room up with your normal black bucks, you would, because niggers are basically primitive animals." Later, Duke refutes this in a 1997 interview, although only sort of: "Whoever gave you that quote is totally inaccurate... No one is going to find any tape of me using the word nigger or talking in those kinds of terms. Now I certainly will talk frankly and openly about the fact that there is a problem of black rape of white women in this country. The truth is there are two hundred white women raped in America by a black man for every one black woman raped by whites." |
| Nov 1978 |
David Duke publishes the Klan Code of Conduct: "Our clear goal must be the advancement of the white race and separation of the white and black races. This goal must include freeing of the American media and government from subservient Jewish interests." |
| 17 Nov 1978 |
The Heritage Florida Jewish News quotes David Duke as proclaiming at a Clearwater Klan rally: "Jewish people have put the interests of race over the interests of the American people... Jews are filled with more hatred and rage for our race, for our heritage, for our blood than perhaps you can imagine." |
| 1980 |
David Duke establishes the National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP), which he describes as a "white rights lobby organization". |
| Apr 1982 |
In an editorial in the NAAWP newsletter, David Duke asks: "Am I an alarmist? Is my vision unreal? All one has to do is look around this globe and see the Third World reality. Are whites holding every one of the nonwhite countries down, or are we in fact pumping billions of dollars into them along with every technological aid that the West can produce? And now the West itself is gradually being enveloped by nonwhite immigration. The exploding numbers of nonwhites are slowly wrapping formerly white nations in a dark human cocoon. Shall a butterfly emerge, or the beast that has haunted the ruins of every great white civilization that submitted to invasion by immigration and racial miscegenation?" |
| Mar 1985 |
In an interview, David Duke declares: "What we really want to do is to be left alone. We don't want Negroes around. We don't need Negroes around. We're not asking—you know, we don't want to have them, you know, for our culture. We simply want our own country and our own society. That's in no way exploitive at all. We want our own society, our own nation." |
| Nov 1989 |
David Duke elected to Louisana State Legislature. |
| 13 May 1990 |
In an interview published in the San Francisco Chronicle, David Duke declares: "The Jews are trying to destroy all other cultures—as a survival mechanism—the only Nazi country in the world is Israel." |
| 19 Dec 1991 |
After losing the Louisiana gubernatorial election, David Duke exults: "I won my constituency. I won 55% of the white vote." |
| Nov 1998 |
My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding is published by Duke and sold through his website. 736 pages, $25.00. |
| 1 Nov 1999 |
In filing his 1998 tax return form, David Duke claims he made $18,831.00 when in fact he actually made $65,034.00. Naughty, naughty. He is convinced of tax evasion in 2002. |
| Nov 2000 |
Duke's home is raided by the FBI while he is in Moscow promoting the Russian version of his book. Duke begins staying in the Ukraine as a guest for the next two years, travelling throughout Europe and Russia and giving lectures and book tours. |
| 18 Dec 2002 |
Duke pleads guilty to tax evasion and fraud and is sentenced to 15 months in jail and a $10,000 fine. |
