Duke plans Sandpoint visit

SANDPOINT - David Duke is coming to town to drum up support for another possible presidential campaign, the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force has learned.

Task force President Laura Bry discovered Duke plans to speak in Sandpoint through her periodic checks of the social networking site Twitter.

"It's all over Twitter," she said, noting that some on the microblogging service are saying Duke's remarks will concern "white civil rights."

Duke posted announcement on his official website indicating he will be at the America's Promise Ministries church on Saturday as part of a nationwide tour to discuss "the critical issues facing America and the world and the possibility of entering the Republican primaries for president of the United States."

Duke claims on his website that he has the backing of rank-and-file members of the Tea Party Movement, conservative Republicans and the Democratic "hard hat vote" in Louisiana, where he served as a state representative from 1989-1992.

Duke, 60, is a former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan who ran in the Democratic presidential primary in 1988 and in the Republican presidential primary in 1992.

"The media will tell you that you can't trust me because of my past. Well, I think my past is one of the reasons why you should support me, because my past shows that I'm a man who says what he believes, who is willing to be unpopular, to tell what he believes to be the whole truth," Duke said in a recent video discussing his third potential run for the White House.

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Duke as "the most recognizable figure of the American radical right, a neo-Nazi, longtime Klan leader and now international spokesman for Holocaust denial."

The church hosting Duke, America's Promise Ministries, is regarded by SPLC as a Christian identity church with a toned-down message of white separatism that stops short of openly advocating bloodshed.

"I don't believe the white race is superior; we don't teach that here, and we're certainly not out there teaching violence or overthrow of the government. We teach the light of the Gospel message just like every other church does," the Rev. Dave Barley said in a 2002 Daily Bee interview.

The church's followers, however, have been connected to violent attacks on an abortion clinic and a newspaper office and a 1999 shooting rampage at the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center, according to SPLC.

Bry said it was unclear Thursday if the task force will address Duke's visit in some way, shape or form.

"I've e-mailed my board to get some guidance or direction and find out how they're feeling about this," Bry said.