Organizing

For almost 30 years, ADC has been building bridges with other communities and forging coalitions with organizations throughout the country on issues of mutual concern. ADC is a grassroots civil rights organization which welcomes people of all backgrounds, faiths and ethnicities as members.  With 38 chapters nationwide, thousands of members, and members in every state, ADC is the nation’s largest Arab-American grassroots civil rights organization.

ADC's Organizing Department mobilizes the community by coordinating the efforts of chapters, local offices and activists across the nation, and directing ADC's national campaigns.  ADC is the only Arab-American organization which is a member of the US Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and is on the executive committee.  Thus ADC works in coalition with more than 200 civil rights organizations.

In the recent presidential elections, ADC set up the “Voter Protection Unit” (VPU) within local communities as a way of safeguarding the rights of Arab/Muslim Americans and others to vote during the general elections.  The special unit was composed of three attorneys in Washington, DC who networked with others across the country, and one attorney in Dearborn, Michigan, as well as hundreds of volunteers. ADC’s VPU was tasked full time for 30 days before the 2008 elections to protect the Arab and Muslim American communities from attempts at chilling the communities’ democratic right to vote. ADC’s VPU group also responded to fear tactics and hostility.