John Prendergast's blog

John Prendergast is a human rights activist and best-selling author who has worked for peace in Africa for over 25 years. He is the co-founder of the Enough Project, an initiative to end genocide and crimes against humanity affiliated with the Center for American Progress. John has worked for the Clinton White House, the State Department, two members of Congress, the National Intelligence Council, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and the U.S. Institute of Peace.  He has been a Big Brother for over 25 years, as well as a youth counselor and a basketball coach.

John is the author or co-author of ten books.  His newest book, Unlikely Brothers, is a dual memoir co-authored with his first little brother in the Big Brother program and is now available in paperback. His previous two books were co-authored with Don Cheadle: Not On Our Watch, a New York Times bestseller and NAACP non-fiction book of the year, and The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa's Worst Human Rights Crimes.

Under the Enough Project umbrella, John has helped create a number of initiatives and campaigns.  With George Clooney, he helped launch the Satellite Sentinel Project, which aims to prevent conflict and human rights abuses through satellite imagery.  With Tracy McGrady and other NBA stars, John co-founded the Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools Program to fund schools in Darfurian refugee camps and create partnerships with schools in the United States. He helped launch two campaigns under Enough: the Raise Hope for Congo Campaign, highlighting the issue of conflict minerals that fuel the war there, and Sudan Now, focused on bringing peace to that embattled country.

John has appeared in four episodes of 60 Minutes, for which the team won an Emmy Award, and helped create African characters and stories for two episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, one focusing on the recruitment of child soldiers and the other on rape as a war strategy. John has also traveled to Africa with NBC’s Dateline, ABC’s Nightline, The PBS NewsHour, CNN’s Inside Africa, Newsweek/The Daily Beast, and The New York Times Magazine.

He has appeared in several documentaries including: Sand and Sorrow, Darfur Now, 3 Points, and War Child. He also co-produced with Martin Sheen the documentary Staging Hope, which focuses on Northern Uganda. John partnered with Downtown Records and Mercer Street Records to create the compilation album “Raise Hope for Congo,” combating sexual violence against women and girls in Congo.

He has been profiled in The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Men's Vogue, Time, Entertainment Weekly, GQ, Oprah Magazine, Capitol File, Arrive, Interview, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. The Huffington Post recently named John one of its Game Changers during the last year.

During 2011-2012 John is a visiting professor at Albright College, Yale Law School, Temple University, Stanford University, Columbia University, the University of San Diego, the University of Pittsburgh, St. Mary’s College, and University of Massachusetts Lowell.  He has been awarded six honorary doctorates. John is a board member and serves as Strategic Advisor to Not On Our Watch, the organization founded by George Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Brad Pitt.