done. >> time for one more question. >> [inaudible] >> by all means. thank you for your patience. >> thank you for being here. i want to ask you what you are doing now. >> i started a company called the resources group and we are a traditional private equity fund and we invest in energy mining, agriculture and logistic opportunities throughout africa and taking that know how to operate in difficult places to make it work and the basic commodities, again, basic metals, oil and gas and the kind of logistics. we are excited about africa. it can be the bread basket of the world. there's an enormous amount to be done there and africa is waking up the opportunities and we are on the leading edge to make it happen in the frontier.

>> going to bring gandy out to close up the program but please mine me and my thanking erik prince. [applause] >> thank you, erik and tracie. ladies and gentlemen if you would like your book sign your personalized i would ask that you give us a minute to step up the stage. in an orderly fashion if he would line up in decile here and then we will get the book signed and exit out that door. thank you very much. triet [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] we are here at the national press club talking with o'brien about his book we shall not be moved. tell us a little bit about how you got into this project. >> this was a project when i saw this photograph at the martin luther king center in atlanta in 1992 and realized that this photograph was iconic representation of the sick and and i knew the woman in the center of the photograph. i had met her through her children 20 years before in arlington virginia when i was a playground director and i knew at that moment in the context of all of the iconic civil rights

paraphernalia at the king center this is a story that needed to be told so i decided at that moment to go home and start interviewing my friend and find out about. >> did you recognize her in the picture and had she already talked about this experience and sit in? >> i recognized her in the photograph because the children had a total out on occasion and said my mother is a famous photograph, so why didn't really understand how significant that photograph was until i saw the context. >> and what did you learn about the civil rights movement that you hadn't known before? >> what is interesting about this story is that she is a southern white woman who came to see her family and for her involvement in the civil rights

movement. she told me so much of her story and about courage and about perseverance. and through her i got really interested in the entire story in the movement and so the broad story including [inaudible] >> can you tell me what inspired you to get involved in the movement in 1963? >> guice been involved since 1960 but what brought me to the movement is going to sunday school and singing about the children and and memorizing of of verses and do unto others as they would do unto you. then in high school we had the declaration of independence and we hold these truths to be self evident. we had to memorize that whole

thing. and i felt that we were a bunch of hypocrites. but as a white southerner i felt that when i had the chance to do something to make the south the best that it could be it can with the movement. >> how old were you when you were participating? >> de team, a college freshman. >> did you have to join the group to be trained to join or did you just walk in? >> they told us that a group of students from north carolina college who were doing of the said ins were going to come to the next meeting and explain what was all about to us and they did. and then they invited us to join and so a few of us did. >> how many did you participate

in what? >> lots of things. and joined the sedans in ostend across the river. i wasn't sitting in there but they had tickets for the ride so why did that and handed them off. we were in a rock bellsouth carolina and came to freedom ride and one thing led to the next. >> where are you from an originally? >> i was born in washington, d.c.. i am home. but after above rights -- my family is from georgia in a really touched me, the pictures and i felt the integration of

the college's couldn't be undergoing this tremendous thing, that integration is real and had to be a two-way street. the college accepted me. so the ticket to mississippi and there i was. >> did you incorporate the story of other freedom riders in the book? >> absolutely. there were nine demonstrators in jacksonville that the and i was able to interview all of them. there was one additional freedom rider but unfortunately he died before i got involved. i talked to his family and he was part of a group in new orleans so i talked to them and this incorporates a lot of stories. the demonstrators, the media

covering the sit-in's, i was able to get the fbi records and i talked to some of the people who were pictured in the crowd. i was able to identify them and talk to them as well so it was a comprehensive story of what happened that day. >> was it like talking to the crowd members? >> it was a very unusual situation. i think that fact that their story as well unfortunately some of them are still segregationists and continue to believe but the powerful story that i came across less as a person that actually took the photograph. he was a white southern photographer and an jon joined the sedans for -- sit-ins one.

he saw quite a dignitary and the mob mentality of his friends and neighbors and he realized that it was no longer. it's a very powerful story and that is what we ended the book with. >> you mentioned medgar evers. how much did you get in the investigation? >> we start with one in mississippi and paint that picture of what it was like at that time for somebody to come back from the war that he fought for freedom for his country and then not be able to experience it himself. so his story is really woven throughout. and then his part of the book tells the whole story of what happened to the movement.

>> thank you very much for your time. >> with a few weeks left many publications are putting out their year-end list of notable books. these titles were included in publishers weekly best books of 2013.