 James Abourezk was the first Arab-American to serve in the U.S. Senate. James George Abourezk (born February 24, 1931) was a United States Representative and United States Senator, and was the first Arab-American to serve in the Senate.
Though of Lebanese descent, Abourezk was born in Wood, South Dakota and lived in South Dakota most of his life. Between 1948 and 1952, he served in the United States Navy during the Korean War. Back in the U.S., he received a degree in civil engineering from South Dakota School of Mines in Rapid City, South Dakota in 1961, and then earned an advanced degree from South Dakota Law School in Vermillion in 1966. He passed the bar, and began a legal practice in Rapid City.
He was elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives, and served from 1971 to 1973. He then was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until 1979. In the Senate, he was preceded by Karl Earl Mundt, and followed by Larry Lee Pressler. There, he was the chair of the Select Committee on Indian Affairs and of the American Indian Policy Review Commission. He earned a reputation as a maverick who questioned the political status quo.
In 1980, Abourezk founded the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, a grassroots civil rights organization committed empowering Arab-Americans and encouraging a balanced U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Abourezk now works as a lawyer and writer in Rapid City. In 1989, he wrote Advise and Dissent: Memoirs of South Dakota and the U.S. Senate (ISBN 1556520662).
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