School of Their Own

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.

"A School of Their Own is a vivid and important account of Mike Gross's remarkable half-century mission fighting for Navajo legal rights...full of fascinating and poignant stories, unforgettable portraits, and historic legal victories overcoming the dark legacy of boarding schools and forced assimilation."

- Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"A must-read for anyone curious about how the national tragedy of Native American boarding schools and forced assimilation came to a screeching halt, thanks to the people who ushered in the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975."

- Bobbie Greene Kilberg, former White House Fellow and President Emeritus, Northern Virginia Technology Council