Two seemingly unrelated events of the last week have caused me to reflect on the long journey we’ve taken to Arab American empowerment. The first was the March 27 death of former Senator Joseph Lieberman. This was followed by the 28th anniversary of the tragic death of former Secretary of Commerce Ronald Brown on April 3.

Arab Americans were provided the opportunity to enter U.S. politics as an organized community in the 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns of Jesse Jackson. Because it was the first campaign to welcome Arab Americans by name, the community enthusiastically responded. We registered new voters, organized to elect a record number of delegates to the national convention (over 80, when in previous years there had never been more than a handful), with many hundreds more participating in state party conventions and passing Palestinian statehood resolutions in 10 states.

Despite our successes, or more likely due to them, the resistance by pro-Israel groups to our involvement increased dramatically. They smeared us and pressured candidates and elected officials to reject our support. In 1984, for example, the presidential campaign of Walter Mondale returned Arab American contributions and in 1998, the Michael Dukakis campaign rejected an endorsement from Arab American Democrats.

Change is never easy and never comes by itself, it requires hard work and allies.

After the 1988 campaign, as Ron Brown was set to begin his chairmanship of the Democratic Party, he pledged to end this exclusion. His first meeting as chair was with me, saying he wanted to send the message that Arab Americans had a home in the Democratic Party. As he introduced me to key staff, he announced to all that this was a new day for Arab Americans in the party. And it was.

A few months later he became the first party chair to address an Arab American convention. One of his staff told me that before coming into our meeting he had an “emergency coffee” with a major pro-Israel donor who told him, “if you even walk into that room, I’ll pull my donations and get others to join me.” I asked Brown what he was going to do. He said, “I’m going to speak to Arab Americans.”

The problems we faced didn’t end. Pressure was placed on other candidates and elected officials on the local levels to exclude Arab Americans—and many did. By the time we got to the 1992 Democratic Convention, we were frustrated by the block we encountered in trying to work with the Clinton campaign.

At the convention, I was approached by David Ifshin who served both as legal counsel to AIPAC and as an official........

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