"[3] Duke began his career as a theatre actor, before making his film debut as aspiring revolutionary Abdullah Mohammed Akbar in the ensemble comedy Car Wash (1976).

Frequently a character actor, he has starred opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando (1985) and Predator (1987), and has appeared in films like American Gigolo (1980), Bird on a Wire (1990), Menace II Society (1993), Payback (1999), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), and Mandy (2018).

Duke's directorial debut was The Killing Floor (1984), which aired as an episode of American Playhouse and won the Special Jury Prize at the 1984 Sundance Film Festival.

[4] He has directed episodes of numerous television series including Cagney & Lacey, Dallas, Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, and The Twilight Zone.

[citation needed] He did, however, appear on Broadway in the 1971 Melvin Van Peebles musical Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death.

[citation needed] Standing at an imposing 6 feet 4+1⁄2 inches (1.94 m) and with a closely shaved head, Duke first became a familiar face to moviegoers in Car Wash (1976), where he portrayed fierce young Black Muslim revolutionary Abdullah Mohammed Akbar (formerly known as Duane).

In Menace II Society (1993), he played a police investigator who tricks the main character into contradicting himself during an interrogation, then tries to rattle him by repeating the line, "You done fucked up, you know that, don't you?

Duke appeared as Trask in X-Men: The Last Stand, Washington in National Security, Levar in Get Rich or Die Tryin', Nokes in Bad Country and Caruthers in Mandy.

[citation needed] In the early 1980s, Duke accidentally secured a directing job on Knots Landing, due to a secretarial or clerical error at AFI Conservatory.

He credits the benevolence and humanity of people like Larry Hagman and Jane Wyman for his early TV directing success, while he occasionally heard derogatory remarks, and even racial slurs, from crew members, including the Teamsters.

Duke had a starring role in the short-lived TV series Palmerstown, U.S.A., produced by Norman Lear and Roots author, Alex Haley.

[19] In 2018, Duke joined the second season of The CW superhero drama series Black Lightning as recurring character Agent Percy Odell, a dedicated A.S.A.