David Duke
Overview
David Ernest Duke is a former Grand Wizard
Grand Wizard
Grand Wizard was the title given to the leader of the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan which existed from 1866 to 1871.In 1915, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was created, initially as a fraternal organization. The highest-ranking leader of the latter organization was the Imperial Wizard. National...

 of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...

  an American activist and writer, and former Republican Louisiana State Representative
Louisiana House of Representatives
The Louisiana House of Representatives is the lower house in the Louisiana State Legislature, the state legislature of the US state of Louisiana. The House is composed of 105 Representatives, each of whom represents approximately 42,500 people . Members serve four-year terms with a term limit of...

. He was also a former candidate in the Republican presidential primaries in 1992, and in the Democratic presidential primaries in 1988. Duke has unsuccessfully run for the Louisiana State Senate
Louisiana State Senate
The Louisiana State Senate is the upper house of the state legislature of Louisiana. All Senators serve four year terms and are assigned multiple committees to work on. The Republicans control the State Senate following a Special Election Victory in District 26 by Jonathan W. Perry...

, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and Governor of Louisiana.

A former Grand Wizard
Grand Wizard
Grand Wizard was the title given to the leader of the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan which existed from 1866 to 1871.In 1915, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was created, initially as a fraternal organization. The highest-ranking leader of the latter organization was the Imperial Wizard. National...

 of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...

, Duke describes himself as a racial realist
Racial realism
Racial realism is a view held by some political groups and individuals which holds that racial divisions of humans are based in biological reality, and that racial distinctions are enduringly important because racial groups differ genetically with regard to such important behavioral tendencies as...

, asserting that "all people have a basic human right to preserve their own heritage." He is a strong advocate of opposition to Zionism
Anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionistic views or opposition to the state of Israel. The term is used to describe various religious, moral and political points of view in opposition to these, but their diversity of motivation and expression is sufficiently different that "anti-Zionism" cannot be...

 as well as what he asserts to be Zionist control of the Federal Reserve Bank
Federal Reserve Bank
The twelve Federal Reserve Banks form a major part of the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States. The twelve federal reserve banks together divide the nation into twelve Federal Reserve Districts, the twelve banking districts created by the Federal Reserve Act of...

, the federal government and the media
American Media
American Media, Inc., is a publisher of a number of major United States-based magazines and supermarket tabloids.-Company background:The modern American Media came into being after Generoso Pope, Jr., longtime owner of The National Enquirer, died in 1988, and his tabloids came under new ownership...

.
Quotations

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.

"Duke Speaks Out," in The Crusader, a KKKK newsletter (November 1978)

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….

Interview with Evelyn Rich (March 1985)

I won my constituency. I won 55% of the white vote.

On losing the Louisiana gubernatorial election (November 1991)

I am opposed to globalism, I am opposed to colonialism, I am opposed to any sort of complusion of one nation over another. (...) I also deeply believe in human rights.

Radio show (August 25, 2006)

I don't consider myself a racist, I don't hate other peoples, but I certainly want to preserve my own. And I think that's true of all people.

Radio show (August 25, 2006)

Terrorism does not happen in a vacuum. And we would not be subject to and endangered by so-called terrorism within our own countries if we in fact kept our countries as our own heritage, our own value system. The recent terror plot in Britain, for instance was launched mostly, almost entirely by Muslims of non-Europan descent, who were born in Britain. Born in Britain, because of the immigration policies of our countries.

Radio show (August 25, 2006)

I don’t want to see this country resemble or look like or become like Mexico. Mexico is great to visit, I’ve been there a few times. I respect all peoples of the world.

Radio show (4 July 2006)

 
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