Michael Gross recalls Moral Monday arrest

Whatever happens in the next decade or two, East Carolina University professor Michael Gross said he did not want to look back and think he failed to stand up for something.

A professor of German history with degrees from the University of Chicago, Columbia and Brown, Gross teaches his students about the effects of “fanatical, right-wing radicalism” and its effect on Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s.

“One of the things we talk about is the responsibility we have to participate and protect democracy by speaking up,” Gross said. “If we don’t, it may very well collapse and be replaced by hypocrisy or a minority group that dictates its will. We’re in danger of letting others undermine our republic if we don’t educate ourselves.”...