Nazi Party conference in Virginia with fellow white supremacists David Duke and Joseph Paul Franklin (the latter of who was later convicted of multiple acts of racial and antisemitic terrorism and executed for serial murder). The Ku Klux Klan and Operation Red Dog Black joined the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1975, one year after David Duke took over the organization. He moved to Birmingham to become the group's state organizer. After the resignation of Duke in 1980, Black became Grand Wizard, or national director, of the Klan. In 1979, he ran for mayor of Birmingham, receiving 2.5% of the vote. Richard Arrington Jr. won the mayoral election, becoming Birmingham's first African American mayor. On April 27, 1981, Black and nine other would-be mercenaries – many recruited from Klan affiliated organizations – were arrested in New Orleans as they prepared to board a boat stocked with weapons and ammunition to invade the island nation Dominica in what they would call Operation Red Dog. Local media labeled the botched attempt the "Bayou of Pigs", a play on words for the unsuccessful 1961 "Bay of Pigs Invasion" of Cuba. Black later explained the invasion as an attempt to set up an anti-communist regime, saying, "What we were doing was in the best interests of the United States and its security in the hemisphere, and we feel betrayed by our own government." The invasion was intended to restore former prime minister Patrick John to the mostly black Caribbean island. Prosecutors said the real purpose for the invasion would have been to set up tourism, gambling, offshore banking, and timber logging operations on the impoverished island. In 1981, Black was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in the attempted invasion and his violation of the Neutrality Act. Black, Federal Bureau of Prisons #16692-034, was released on November 15, 1984. During his time in federal prison Black took computer programming classes which led him to establish Stormfront on the Internet years later. He ran for office in Alabama, this time as a Populist Party U.S. Senate candidate. Stormfront In 1995, Black founded Stormfront, which was the Internet's first significant website espousing racial hate. It remains among the most popular online resources for those drawn to racist ideologies. The site has featured the writings of William Luther Pierce and David Duke as well as works by the Holocaust denying Institute for