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David Ernest Duke (born July 1, 1950) is a former Louisiana State Representative and former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

He has made a number of unsuccessful political bids for higher office, including run for the Louisiana State House, Louisiana State Senate, United States Senate, United States House, governor of Louisiana and twice for president of the United States. In 2002 he pled guilty to tax evasion and fraud charges. He is a long-time New Orleans resident and the proud father of Erika and Kristin Duke. 

Youth & Early Adulthood, the Klan and first campaigns

David Duke was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to David H. & Maxine Duke. As a Shell Oil engineer his fathers frequently moved his wife, David, and his sister Dotti to numerious locations around the world. The Duke's spent a short period of living in the Netherlands before they settled in Louisiana. Young David became interested in the white nationalist movement at an early age and joined the Klan in 1967. Duke went on to study at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and in 1970, he formed a caucasian campus-group known as the White Youth Alliance. That same year, he made himself known even more by demonstrating in swastika regalia to protest William Kunstler's appearance at Tulane University, LA. He was involved in the campus ROTC, until he was kicked out due to his radical beliefs. In 1971, he went to Laos to teach English to Laotian military officers and serve on cargo flights for Air America over the course of ten weeks.

Duke returned to LSU, graduating in 1974. He became notorious on campus for wearing a Nazi uniform, Ku Klux Klan apparel, and swastika paraphernalia while picketing and holding parties on the anniversary of the birth of Adolf Hitler. The year of his graduation, he was elected Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He attracted attention for trying to modernize the Klan and turn it into a modern nationalist political force. For example, he changed the title of 'Grand Wizard' to 'National Director' and sported a conservative suit as opposed to the traditional white robe. 

In 1976, Duke sought a seat in the Louisiana State Senate as a Democrat. In 1978, he left the Klan and two years later formed the National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP). In 1987, he conducted a direct-mail appeal using the identity and mailing-list of the Forsyth County Defense League, in Georgia, without permission, which League officials described as a fund-raising ""scam"" (detailed in The Rise of David Duke by Tyler Bridges). In 1988, he ran in the Democratic Party primary for President of the United States. After a dismal showing in the Democratic primaries, he appeared on many state ballots as the nominee of the Populist Party and received  approximately 25,000 votes in the 1988 general election.

Using the pseudonym Dorothy Vanderbilt, Dr. Duke published a self-help book for women titled Finders-Keepers in 1976. The publication gives advice to women regarding vaginal exercises, fellatio, anal sex, and anilingus .  The manual is no longer in print and hard to find, however “The Picayune”, a local Mississippi newspaper, managed to find a copy and trace the trail of it’s proceeds to the original  author via the publisher.

In the 1980s, he was heavily involved in gambling and stock market investments, which were covered by the Times-Picayune, as well as by others. Columbia Journalism Review, THE PICAYUNE CATCHES UP WITH DAVID DUKE Attitudes of Mississippi college students toward David Duke before and after seeing the film 'Who Is David Duke?' The Nation, Republicanizing the Race Card

In the latter years of the 1980s, Duke sought to revamp his appearance by undergoing plastic surgery, and also shaved off his moustache following his election to the Louisiana House of Representatives.

In 1984 David Duke and wife Chloe Hardin were divorced. Hardin then moved to West Palm Beach, Florida to be closer to her family. There she became involved with Duke’s childhood friend, Don Black, whom she married several years later. [http://www