Michael O. Fitzgerald

Michael Oren Fitzgerald (born 1949) is an author, editor and entrepreneur. He and his wife, Judith Fitzgerald, have an adult son and live in Bloomington, Indiana.

The first book Fitzgerald recorded and edited was Yellowtail: Crow Medicine Man and Sun Dance Chief. It is the story of the late Thomas Yellowtail, one of the most honored American Indian spiritual leaders of the last century. Choice Magazine wrote, “This book becomes the personal testament of a pivotal figure in recent Crow cultural history. The book describes in exquisite detail Yellowtail’s philosophy. Fitzgerald examines the place of the Sun Dance, and of the sacred, in the life and future of the Crow… It is a serious work of anthropology and history.” Fitzgerald first met Susie Yellowtail, who is now enshrined in the Montana Hall of Fame, when he was Joseph Epes Brown’s graduate teaching assistant at Indiana University, Bloomington, for “Religious Traditions of the North American Indians”. Fitzgerald spent the summer of 1971 living with Thomas and Susie Yellowtail on the Crow Indian Reservation in Wyola, Montana, where he participated in the tribal Sun Dance and was adopted into the Yellowtail family and the Crow tribe. Following Dr. Brown’s 1972 departure to Montana, Fitzgerald taught a course of the same name in the Indiana University (Bloomington) Continuing Studies Department for two years.

Fitzgerald married his wife, Judith, in 1972. The Yellowtails introduced the Fitzgeralds to many spiritual leaders of other American Indian tribes. Over the next forty years Judith and Michael Fitzgerald spent extended periods of time visiting reservations and attending sacred ceremonies throughout the American West, including the sacred rites of the Crow, Sioux, Cheyenne, Shoshone, Bannock, and Apache Tribes. Janine Pease, founding president of the Little Big Horn College, National Indian Educator of the Year and a McArthur Genius Award winner, had this to say about Fitzgerald's relationship with Indian people and cultures: “Michael Fitzgerald has heard the poignant narratives of the American Indian people, and has lived among the Crow people for extended periods of time since 1970. He has studied American Indian religious traditions on the earth, among the people, in ceremonies and family gatherings. We thank Fitzgerald for his deep-seated appreciation, honor, and respect for American Indian culture, its religion, language, and lifeways.” These contacts led to the creation of a number of books and two documentary films on the American Indians. Fitzgerald has also lectured widely on American Indian history and culture at various colleges and high schools.

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