David Ernest Duke (born July 1, 1950) is an American white nationalist, former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, former Republican and Democratic Louisiana State Representative, and a candidate in presidential primaries and presidential elections.

Duke describes himself as a racial realist asserting that "all people have a basic human right to preserve their own heritage." He speaks in favor of voluntary racial segregation and white separatism.

Duke has also unsuccessfully run for the Louisiana Senate, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, Governor of Louisiana and twice for President of the United States.

Youth and early adulthood

David Duke was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to David H. Duke and Alice Maxine Crick. As the son of an engineer for Shell Oil, Duke frequently moved with his family around the world. They lived a short time in the Netherlands before settling in Louisiana. In the late 1960s, Duke met the leader of the white separatist National Alliance, William Pierce, who would remain a life-long influence. Duke joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1967.

Duke studied at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and in 1970 formed a white student group called the White Youth Alliance; it was affiliated with the National Socialist White People's Party. The same year, to protest William Kunstler's appearance at Tulane University in New Orleans, Duke appeared at a demonstration in Nazi uniform. Picketing and holding parties on the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth, he became infamous on campus for wearing a Nazi uniform.

Reforming the KKK

Duke went to Laos for ten weeks in 1971 to teach English to Laotian military officers and to serve on cargo flights for Air America.

He graduated from LSU in 1974 and formed the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He gained attention for trying to modernize the Klan. A follower of Duke, Thom Robb, changed the title of Grand Wizard to National Director and replaced the Klan's white robes with business suits.

In 1976 Duke published a women's self-help book titled Finders-Keepers to raise money. He used the pseudonym Dorothy Vanderbilt. The book includes advice on vaginal exercises, fellatio, and anal sex. The book is out of print and difficult to find; however, a New Orleans newspaper, The Times-Picayune, managed to obtain a copy and traced its proceeds to Duke. He compiled the information from women's self-help magazines.

While working in the White Youth Alliance, Duke met Chloê Hardin, who became active in the group. They remained companions throughout college and married in 1974. Hardin is the mother of Duke's two daughters, Erika and Kristin. They divorced in 1984, and Hardin moved to West Palm Beach to be near her parents. There she became involved with Duke's Klan friend, Don Black, whom she later married.