EBOOK
A School of Their Own
A tenacious lawyer and his Navajo clients' fight for Indian self-determination, from remote New Mexi
Michael P. Gross(0)
About
As an Ivy League student in the 1960s, Michael Gross's optimistic perception of America was shattered. When appalling social inequality became immediate for him – first in the Deep South and later in the Navajo Nation – it struck a nerve.
In his first case as a cub lawyer at a War-on-Poverty legal services office in Window Rock, Arizona, Gross was assigned to file a lawsuit to reopen a high school in Ramah, New Mexico. He would spend the next fifty years helping tribes achieve self-governance, a dream they chased through centuries of betrayal by the U.S. government.
This is the story of the son of Holocaust survivors who forged an unlikely alliance with his Native clients: to educate their children, preserve their culture and language, and adapt to political and economic realities on their own terms.
In his first case as a cub lawyer at a War-on-Poverty legal services office in Window Rock, Arizona, Gross was assigned to file a lawsuit to reopen a high school in Ramah, New Mexico. He would spend the next fifty years helping tribes achieve self-governance, a dream they chased through centuries of betrayal by the U.S. government.
This is the story of the son of Holocaust survivors who forged an unlikely alliance with his Native clients: to educate their children, preserve their culture and language, and adapt to political and economic realities on their own terms.