James Abourezk: First Arab American Senator and Indian Child Welfare Act

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James Abourezk was born in 1931 in Wood, South Dakota, to Charles and Lena, Lebanese Greek Orthodox immigrants who ran general stores on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. He spoke only Arabic at home until elementary school. Expelled from high school at 16 over a prank on a teacher, he joined the Navy and served as an electrician's mate in Japan during the Korean War, then worked as a rancher, taught judo, ran a bar later known as the Gaslight, earned a civil engineering degree, and helped build Minuteman missile silos for the Air Force. At 32 he went to law school. He lost a race for attorney general in 1968, won a U.S. House seat in 1970, and in 1972 became the first Arab American elected to the U.S. Senate.

In 1973 he and George McGovern negotiated inside the Wounded Knee occupation. As the first chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs he wrote the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 and the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, which gave tribal courts primary authority over custody cases for Native children. His 1974 amendment banning overseas police assistance led to the closing of USAID's Office of Public Safety in 1975. He left after a single term, and his seat went to Larry Pressler. In 1980 he founded the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

• His bar employees included future Governor Bill Janklow and future activist Russell Means, who later helped lead the Wounded Knee occupation.
• After Dr. Connie Redbird Pinkerman-Uri exposed sterilizations of Native women at federal facilities, he ordered a GAO investigation.
• He won Abourezk v. Reagan in 1987 before Ruth Bader Ginsburg, challenging visa denials to foreign speakers.
• He also represented the Islamic Republic of Iran in contract lawsuits from the Shah's era.
• A 2007 interview on Hezbollah-funded Al-Manar, in which he promoted conspiracy claims about 9/11 and Congress, drew wide condemnation, and he died on his 92nd birthday in 2023.