David Duke Returns to Haunt the Republican House Whip
David Duke speaks at a 2000 meeting of his "European-American" organization.
CSPANOn the morning of Jan. 21, 2000, David Duke stood in a rented room at the National Press Club to announce his next act. It had been a few months since Duke tried and failed to win a congressional seat in Louisiana, and his own electoral career—which peaked when he got into 1991's runoff for governor of Louisiana—was over. His self-published doorstop of a memoir wasn't selling. Still, Duke had a brand, and adherents, and he was ready to organize them in the National Organization for European American Rights, or NOFEAR.
"Just as African Americans have the NAACP and Mexican Americans have La Raza, European Americans now have the National Organization for European American Rights, to actively defend their rights and heritage in the United States," said Duke in a press release. At the podium, he repeated himself: "European Americans must band together as a group the same way African Americans do, the same way other minorities do."