Michael Fitzgerald

Michael Fitzgerald (b. 1949) is an author, editor, and publisher of books on world religions, sacred art, tradition, culture and philosophy who is based in Bloomington, Indiana. He has contributed over 20 books that have received more than 45 awards, including the ForeWord Book of the Year Award and the Ben Franklin Award. His books have been published in six different languages (including English) and at least ten of his books and two documentary films produced by him are used in university classes. Fitzgerald is an acknowledged authority on the religion and culture of the Plains Indians and is also the adopted son of the late Thomas Yellowtail, one of the most honored American Indian spiritual leaders of the last century. Fitzgerald holds an Honor’s Degree in Religious Studies from Indiana University, with Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude distinctions, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from Indiana University with Cum Laude distinction.

Michael Fitzgerald was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. From his earliest youth his father instilled in him the great love of virgin nature and the American Indians that was to play a prominent part in his adult life. Fitzgerald’s father also passed on his great respect for traditional Oriental cultures that arose during the time he spent as the commandant of a Marine garrison in Tientsin, China, in 1945-1946.

Fitzgerald’s love of the American Indians blossomed when he was Joseph Epes Brown’s graduate teaching assistant for three semesters for “Religious Traditions of the American Indians”. When Brown departed for a teaching post in Montana in 1972, Fitzgerald replaced him and taught the course in the Indiana University Continuing Studies Department, at the Bloomington campus, for a period of two years. Brown introduced Fitzgerald to Benjamin Black Elk, son of the famous Lakota holy man, and Susie Yellowtail, who is now enshrined in the Montana Hall of Fame. Fitzgerald spent the summer of 1971 living with Thomas and Susie Yellowtail on the Crow Indian Reservation in Wyola, Montana, where he also participated in the tribal Sun Dance. Michael Fitzgerald was subsequently adopted into the Crow tribe.

In 1975 Thomas Yellowtail and his wife made the first of a series of annual October visits to the Fitzgerald home in Bloomington, Indiana. During some of those visits Fitzgerald recorded Yellowtail’s recounting of his life and the history and details of the Crow-Shoshone Sun Dance. These interviews were edited by Michael Fitzgerald and later published as Yellowtail: Crow Medicine Man and Sun Dance Chief and Native Spirit: The Sun Dance Way.

The Yellowtails were to provide the Fitzgeralds with introductions to many spiritual leaders of other American Indian tribes; thus Judith and Michael Fitzgerald have spent extended periods of time over a period of more than thirty-five years visiting traditional cultures and attending sacred ceremonies throughout the American West, including the sacred rites of the Crow, Sioux, Cheyenne, Shoshone, Bannock, and Apache Tribes. These contacts led to the creation of a number of books and two documentary films on the American Indians.

In 2004 Michael Fitzgerald and his wife, Judith, a graduate of Indiana University and an artisan, calligrapher, and graphic designer, published the first in an award-winning series of illustrated inspirational books on the world’s religions, called “Sacred Worlds”, with titles such as Indian Spirit, The Spirit of Indian Women, Christian Spirit, The Sermon of All Creation, and The Universal Spirit of Islam. Many of the photographs in this series and in Fitzgerald’s other books were taken by him during their travels to visit traditional cultures around the world.

Michael and Judith Fitzgerald continue to live in Bloomington, Indiana, as does their son and his family.

Mr. Fitzgerald has written and edited many publications on American Indian spirituality, including Yellowtail: Crow Medicine Man and Sun Dance Chief, first published in 1991 by the University of Oklahoma Press, which he recorded and edited (now in its fifth printing). About the book, the journal Choice wrote, it “describes in exquisite detail Yellowtail’s philosophy…. It is a serious work of anthropology and history.”

A more recent important contribution by Michael Fitzgerald to the understanding of Plains Indian religion appeared in the American Indian Culture and Research Journal. The article is titled New Light on Black Elk and The Sacred Pipe. The Journal summarized the article in this way: “This article provides new information that will oblige scholars to reassess the legacy of Black Elk (1863–1950), including excerpts from recently discovered unpublished letters written by Joseph Epes Brown while he was living with the Lakota holy man (1947–49). The author provides insights into Brown’s personal philosophy and a clearer context for the editorial role he played in recording The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux. Brown’s letters also help to illuminate Black Elk’s role in attempting to restore the sacred ‘religion of the Pipe’ among the Sioux and to clarify controversies that include Black Elk’s dual participation in Catholicism.” For readers of Perennialist writings, it is noteworthy that Fitzgerald’s article also includes important new insight into Frithjof Schuon’s role, as a close associate of Brown, in the chain of events leading to the recording of Black Elk’s teachings on the Seven Rites.

Another notable publication edited by Fitzgerald is Living in Two Worlds: The American Indian Experience (2010) by Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa), which has won many awards and distinctions.

All royalties from Fitzgerald’s books and films about American Indians are donated to different American Indian causes or used to perpetuate American Indian spiritual traditions. This includes the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian, the American Indian College Fund, and the traditional ceremonies of the Crow, Lakota, Apache, and Shoshone. Fitzgerald is both a Director and the Secretary of the Trehero-Trosper Sun Dance Inc., a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the perpetuation of Shoshone traditional ceremonies and culture.

As a fierce advocate of preserving indigenous languages, Fitzgerald is a co-founder of the Crow Language Consortium, a subsidiary of the Language Conservancy, and is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Language Conservancy. The Fitzgerald family provides ongoing financial contributions that include underwriting Crow language textbooks and the establishment of a permanent endowment for the Language Conservancy with the Bloomington Community Foundation