Remembering U.S. Senator and 2012 Inductee James Abourezk

Former U.S. Senator James Abourezk has died. He was born on February 24, 1931, at home in Wood, South Dakota, and died on February 24, 2023, at home in Sioux Falls, SD.

A private family service will take place and he will be buried at Black Hills National Cemetery. A public memorial will be held in Sioux Falls in May. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorials be directed to the American Indian College Fund or to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital where James was on the board. You may view his full obituary here.

Here at the South Dakota Hall of Fame, we are saddened by this loss, but we carry a sense of pride in being able to share and uplift the legacy of James Abourezk, whose story will continue to inspire the generations. Our hearts go out to the Abourezk family. 

James worked as a civil engineer, first in California, then in South Dakota, working on the Minuteman Missile silos in Western South Dakota. He went to Law School in Vermillion in 1963 and graduated cum laude in 1966. He began his law career working as a lawyer for Frank Henderson in Rapid City, later opening his own law office and practicing solo in Rapid City.

In 1968, James became a candidate for South Dakota’s Attorney General, losing the race to Gordon Mydland. But his interest in politics did not vanish with that loss. In 1970, he ran for the Second District U.S. House of Representatives seat covering western South Dakota, which he won by less than two percent, the first Democrat to win that seat since the FDR landslides in the 1930s. In 1972, he ran for the U.S. Senate seat then held by an ailing and longtime Senator Karl Mundt, winning by a margin of 57%. He was known in the Senate as a champion of people who are either unrepresented or underrepresented, groups such as small farmers, consumers, and American Indians.

One of his first committee assignments in the U.S. Senate was to the Indian Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Interior (later Energy Committee) Committee. Soon after receiving that assignment, the siege of Wounded Knee began. James, along with his senior colleague, Senator George McGovern, traveled to Wounded Knee to try to diffuse the situation, which included reports that the militant Native Americans were holding nine hostages. James had talked by phone to the leaders of the American Indian Movement, obtaining a promise that if he came to Wounded Knee the hostages would be released. Although it turned out that the hostages were not really being held against their will—they all lived in Wounded Knee—James then got agreement from militant leader Russell Means that the confrontation would end on condition that the U.S. government would inform the Native Americans of the charges against them, as well as the amount of bond to enable them to inform their lawyers. James passed on the information to the FBI agent in charge of the government’s forces—Joseph Trimbach—and he and Senator McGovern returned to Washington, D.C. the next day, believing the siege would end that day. It went on for 71 more days.

James’s signature achievements while in the Senate included the creation of the American Indian Policy Review Commission, (AIPRC) which, after two years of intensive study, produced a series of recommendations to ease the plight of American Indians. Legislation resulting from the AIPRC included the passage of the Indian Self Determination Act, the Indian Child Welfare Act, and the Indian Freedom of Religion Act.

James also led a thirteen day filibuster of the oil industry’s attempt to deregulate and consequently raise the price of natural gas but lost in that effort when President Jimmy Carter buckled under the pressure of the oil industry, changing his position to help destroy the filibuster—a blow to consumers nationwide. He has written and published two books, Advise and Dissent: A Memoir of South Dakota and the US Senate, and Through Different Eyes, a dialogue on issues in the Middle East which was co-authored by him and Jewish author Hyman Bookbinder, plus dozens of articles on a variety of subjects.

James also led a delegation of South Dakotans along with a combination of basketball teams from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion and the State University in Brookings to Havana, Cuba, to play against the Cuban National basketball team. The Cuban team then returned to South Dakota to play our teams here. James also led a number of South Dakotans on tours of the Middle East where his groups met with various leaders of Arab countries, helping to create understanding of the different cultures.

He was married to Sioux Falls restaurateur Sanaa Abourezk and has four children, Charles Abourezk, Nikki Pipe On Head, Paul Abourezk, and Alya Abourezk.  He also has one stepdaughter Chelsea Machado, and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

You can visit James Abourezk’s Legacy Page by clicking here.