ST. PETERSBURG, Florida — On March 3, John Prendergast, Darfur activist and co-chair of the Enough Project, spoke to hundreds of Eckerd College students on the eve of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. This is the first warrant of arrest ever issued for a sitting Head of State by the ICC.

Prendergast, a 25-year African international affairs veteran and former adviser to the White House and the State Department testified in February about the future of Sudan before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He and other members of the Enough Project have been monitoring and responding to the effects of al-Bashir's arrest.

During the public talk, Prendergast recounted stories of how his relationship with Africa began when, at age twenty, images of Ethiopian famine moved him to buy a one-way ticket to the troubled continent. He addressed the ongoing crisis in Darfur, explaining that in only fifteen minutes a week, students can leverage small actions to make a larger impact. Earlier that evening, Prendergast fielded questions by sixty students from the the EC African Interest Group and Professor of Political Science Bill Felice's classes, Introduction to International Relations and The Hague and International Law.

Florida community radio station WMNF 88.5 fm host Rob Lorei interviewed Prendergast at length earlier in the afternoon.

John Prendergast is co-founder of the Enough Project, an initiative to end genocide and crimes against humanity. During the Clinton administration, he was involved in a number of peace processes in Africa while he was director of African Affairs at the National Security Council and special advisor at the Department of State. He has authored eight books on Africa, including "Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond," a New York Times bestseller and NAACP non-fiction book of the year that he co-authored with actor Don Cheadle. His op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and the International Herald Tribune, and he has been profiled in Vanity Fair, Men's Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, and The Washington Post. Prendergast travels regularly to Africa's war zones on fact-finding missions, peace-making initiatives, and awareness-raising trips.