Crazy Horse Memorial (The Story & People Behind the Dream)

Meticulously researched, Crazy Horse Memorial: The Story Behind the Dream dives into North America's Westward Expansion—and brings an unexpected message of enduring hope.

Surviving and interpreting the brutal displacement of indigenous peoples, a Lakota child named Henry Standing Bear set out to change the world. He grew up to lobby in Washington for Native rights—and imagined the largest rock carving in the world.

The other half of the Crazy Horse Memorial equation—Korczak Ziolkowski—also was a product of his environment. Orphaned, abused, adopted, and indentured in Boston, he grew strong, stubborn, and very, very talented. Eventually he assisted Gutzon Borglum on Mount Rushmore and also won first prize for stone sculpture at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

Henry asked Korczak to carve an impossibly huge sculpture to celebrate that “the red man has great heroes, too,” and Korczak said yes. For the first time, we understand the crucial role of Korczak's first wife, violinist Dorothy Comstock, to his early adulthood and successes—and her support of the monument long after their divorce. She knew as well as anyone that project assistant Ruth Ross was a better fit for Korczak's new life on the mountain.

This inspirational story is one of brotherhood, competition, and deep commitment to a vision that outlasts one's own existence. It defined Ziolkowski's life—and Ruth's, and the lives of their ten children, and their grandchildren after that.