Trivia

Elected to a seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1989. Served on the Judiciary and the Health and Welfare Committees.

Elected to the Louisiana state legislature in 1989, and came in second in the Louisiana gubernatorial race in 1991.

Received BA in history from Louisiana State University in 1974.

Has previously ran for state senator, governor, U.S. representative, U.S. senator, both the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations, and for president as the nominee of the Populist Party.

His autobiography "My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding" is dedicated to William Shockley, the Nobel-prize winning physicist and co-inventor of the transistor. It also includes a foreword by Glayde Whitney, a former president of the Behavior Genetics Association.

His 1991 campaign for governor of Louisiana was endorsed by James Meredith, the first black student at the University of Mississippi. Meredith made the endorsement in a half-hour infomercial produced by the Duke campaign and aired on several television stations in Louisiana.

Received an honorary doctorate in political science from the University of Kyiv, Ukraine, in August 2002.

Has lectured at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Vanderbilt and many other universities.

Resigned from the Klan and formed the National Association for the Advancement of White People in 1978.

Was the elected chairman of St. Tammany Parish's Republican Executive Committee during the late 1990s.

Became National Director of the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan in 1974. Left the Klan in 1978.

Attended kindergarten at a Dutch-speaking school in the Netherlands, where his father was a petroleum engineer for Shell Oil Company.