In the 1950s and 1960s, he was one of a handful of Hollywood actors to speak openly against racism and was an active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. Heston left the Democratic Party in 1971 to become a Republican, founding a conservative political action committee and supporting Ronald Reagan. Heston was a five-term president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), from 1998 to 2003. After announcing he had Alzheimer's disease in 2002, he retired from both acting and the NRA presidency.