UP FRONT

David Duke: The Rise To Power
Of A Former KKK Grand Wizard

ELIZABETH KAPLAN

Features Editor

R N S Photo/Wide World

D

David Duke celebrates victory in Metairie: 'I just want to solve problems.

ROUND UP

Group Opposes
School Bill

A coalition of religious, civil
rights and education
organizations convened by
the American Jewish Con-
gress announced opposition to
Illinois House Bill 0890, the
Education Choice Act of 1989.
The act calls for a voucher
system giving parents cer-
tificates that may be used as
partial payment of tuition at
Illinois public, private or
religious elementary or
secondary schools.
Sylvia Neil, executive direc-
tor and legal counsel of the
AJCongress Midwest Region
in Chicago, said the act could
undermine public funding for
schools because it allows for
state monies to be diverted to
private or religious schools.
She also questioned
whether the act constitutes a
violation of separation of
church and state.

Local Favorites:
Mickey And Asti

Ah, those black kepot. At-
tend virtually any Jewish
function and there they are,
just like old friends.
They're ubiquitous, but
they're not popular. When it
comes to kepot, Detroiters
prefer a hand-painted suede
number, complete with car-
toon characters.
Avrohom Plotnik, co-owner
of Spitzer's Hebrew Book and

Gift Center, reports that the
suede kepot, available in blue
and beige, are his best sellers.
Designed by artist Tzippy of
New York, the kepot feature
designs with Donald Duck,
Sesame Street characters,
Goofy, Superman and Mickey
Mouse, among others.
And what could be nicer
after donning that cute kepah
than a glass of wine. If you're
like the majority of Detroit
Jews, your choice will be Asti
spumanti.
Avrom Borenstein of
Borenstein's Hebrew Books
and Music says the sparkling
white Italian wine is by far
the most popular with
patrons.

Jews Protest
At Auschwitz

Warsaw, Poland — A silent
protest against the presence
of a Roman Catholic convent
at Auschwitz, where millions
of Jews were killed by the
Nazis, was conducted Tuesday
by about 300 Jewish women
near the gate of the concen-
tration camp in southern
Poland.
It was the first such
demonstration held at
Auschwitz, although Jewish
groups have been protesting
the Carmelite nuns' convent
since it was established there
in 1984.

Compiled by Elizabeth
Kaplan.

avid Duke likes
flashy cars, women
running up to kiss
him at public gatherings and
Mein Kampf He believes the
trouble with the United
States, as he expressed at a
1975 meeting of the Knights
of the Ku Klux Klan, is "nig-
gers and Kikes," according to
Allan Katz, political colum-
nist for The New Orleans
Times-Picayune.
The guest of the Anti-
Defamation League of B'nai
B'rith, Katz _ spoke on "A
Bigot Goes to Baton Rouge:
The Political Rise of David
Duke, Former Imperial
Wizard of the KKK" this
week at Adat Shalom
Synagogue.
Duke, 38, was elected last
February to the Louisiana
state legislature.
Katz first met Duke in 1975
at a Klan rally near Baton
Rouge, La. The humidity was
overwhelming, the lawn
covered with a huge,
kerosene-soaked cross ready
for burning. About 20 men
were dressed from top to bot-
tom in the white garb of the
KKK. Most of them wished to
remain hidden.
Duke, then 24 and the
youngest grand wizard in
KKK history, "was the star of
the show," Katz said. He
didn't even bother wearing a
hood because he relished be-
ing seen.
Lambasting Jews and
blacks, Duke called Adolph
Hitler the greatest man who
ever lived and said the Klan's
mission is to carry on the
Nazi leader's work, Katz said.
Duke's admiration of Hitler
started an at early age. He
discovered Mein Kampf and
became obsessed, Katz said.
He founded the White Youth
Alliance while a student at
Louisiana State University.
In 1970, he donned a Nazi
uniform for the trial of the
Chicago Seven, a group of
radicals who were accused of
trying to break up the 1968
Democratic National Conven-
tion. Duke carried a sign with
the message "Gas The
Chicago Seven," Katz said.
He found sympathizers in
the KKK but left the group in
1980, explaining in a letter
than he could "never improve
its reputation with the mid-
dle class as a violent-prone
collection of misfits and fools?'
Not long after, Duke started
his own group: the National

Association for the Advance-
ment of White People
(NAAWP). He called it "a
white rights lobby organiza-
tion, a racialist movement,
mainly middle class people!'
Duke's reputation grew
quickly, Katz said. By the end
of 1980, he had appeared on
more than 1,000 talk shows.
He also had run twice for
president, though the fact
that he garnered less than 1
percent of the vote in Loui-

White legislators,
are 'scared to
death that David
Duke will come to
their districts and
oppose them:

siana convinced Katz and
others that Duke would never
become a success.
Yet four years later, in 1984,
Louisiana became ripe
grounds for Duke's ascension
to power. Faced with an oil
glut in the United States,
Louisiana, with an economy
dependent on the oil business,
lost 200,000 residents. It was,
Katz said, a climate of
despair, "and Duke became a
master of playing on that
despair!'

He also gained popularity
through unspoken intimida-
tion — many residents feared
the Klan — and by changing
his own tactics. "He stopped
talking about 'niggers and
Kikes' and began talking
about black welfare and black
pride and black welfare
mothers," Katz said.
The result was his success
in Metairie, La., a New
Orleans suburb Katz describ-
ed as affluent and
predominately white. Just
across the parrish (county)
line is a poor, black
neighborhood. The area is
plagued by racial tension.
Duke came to Metairie and
delivered his message: "What
you need is a white Jesse
Jackson."
He was helped in his cam-
paign by the fact that his op-
ponent was inept, Katz said,
and by the presence of a
Jewish man from New York
who came to Louisiana to
fight the Duke campaign. He
said Duke should be
countered with violence and
roused the ire of Metairie
residents who didn't want any
New Yorker to come down and
tell them how to run their
state, Katz said.

Duke's success inspired
him. Katz said Duke already
is talking about challenging
long-time Congressman
Robert Livingston in 1990.
Skinheads, in search of an
outlet for their rage, pose in-
dividual threats, Katz said.
Yet Duke, he said, who comes
with a political platform, is a
serious political threat. He
serves as an inspiration for
the skinheads because "he
builds public hatred, public
divisiveness and public rage?'
He also intimidates white
legislators, Katz said, who are
"scared to death that David
Duke will come to their
districts and oppose them."
Duke is basking in the
glory of his success, Katz said.
He boasts that he could take
any candidate with a similar
agenda and help him win in
a city like Metairie. He
speaks of support in every cor-
ner of the United States. In
fact, Katz said, Duke receiv-
ed contributions for his cam-
paign from every state in the
country.
Some Jews have told Katz
"You know,. I hate to tell you
but I really agree with some
of what he says" about blacks.
At rallies and in cor-
respondence, Duke has said
"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!"
Duke also said, "If the
American people learn that
the Holocaust is primarily an
historical hoax and/or that
the greatest holocaust was
not against Jews, but
perpetrated on Christian by
Jews, perhaps many will
begin to use reason in their
analysis of the Jewish impact
into the mass media and the
government."
Yet he continues to insist he
is not a racist, Katz said. "He
says: 'I just want to solve pro-
blems: " ❑

Four Skinheads
Held In Attack

La Verne, Calif. —
Bystanders applauded as
police arrested four neo-Nazi
skinheads Sunday following
an attack on a Jewish couple,
their infant and a black man
who tried to help them.
The suspects apparently
purchased beer at a shopping
center about 5 p.m., then
began shouting ethnic insults
at the Jewish couple.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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