Slow Burn S4 Ep. 1: White Knight

Slate Presents

Slate Podcasts

Documentary, True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.3 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2020

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Here's Episode 1 of Slow Burn Season 4: David Duke. Subscribe here. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a white supremacist became an American political phenomenon. David Duke’s rise to power and prominence—his election to the Louisiana legislature, and then his campaigns for the U.S. Senate and the governorship—was an existential crisis for the state and the nation. The fourth season of Slate’s Slow Burn will explore how a Nazi sympathizer and former Klansman fashioned himself into a mainstream figure, and why some voters came to embrace his message. It will also examine how activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens confronted Duke’s candidacy, and what it took to stop him. The season is hosted by Josh Levin, host of The Queen and native Louisianian. Slate Plus members get bonus episodes of Slow Burn every season, early access to episodes 2 and 3, plus zero ads. Sign up now to listen and support the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, this is Josh Levine, host of the Queen and national editor at Slate.
0:05.0	I'm here to let you know that I am hosting season 4 of Slow Burn,
0:09.0	a podcast that looks in depth at the biggest stories from American history.
0:14.8	Our new series is about the Nazi sympathizer and former clansman David Duke,
0:19.9	how he got elected to the Louisiana legislature and almost became the governor of the state.
0:25.5	I've been wanting to tell this story for a very long time.
0:28.8	As I share in the episode you're about to hear, I grew up in New Orleans and I watched Duke become a political
0:34.7	sensation. The story of how he rose to prominence feels just as urgent now as it was
0:40.6	then. Here's episode one of Slow Burn season four. If you want to get the whole season
0:46.3	subscribe at slate.com slash slow burn or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:53.1	This podcast contains language
0:55.0	that some listeners might find offensive.
0:59.3	White supremacist love talking to Evelyn Rich. Maybe it was her talent for flattery.
1:05.0	All right, well you better face around the other way.
1:09.0	Because you sound like a kind of an interesting person, maybe, but it gives you some background on
1:13.6	yourself and how you got involved in this.
1:17.4	Rich was born in England and she was getting her PhD at Boston University. Her dissertation was on the Modern Ku Klux Clan,
1:25.0	What They Believed and Why They Believed it.
1:28.0	On February 17, 1986, she put her tape recorder in front of a neo-Nazi named Joe Fields.
1:36.0	So how did you get into this?
1:38.8	From the time I was probably four or five I was attracted to national socialism. I used to
1:47.8	watch these Hollywood movies and I moved for the Germans. You know.
	...

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