then and now are what? >> it is a lawless country and there's a sense of desperation, hopelessness, helplessness. there is a fundamentalist, way outsiders who have been trained by al qaeda. al qaeda was actually nurtured in the lawlessness of somalia after the americans were pulled out after black hawk down, which was just after my son was killed. tothere is this direct line what is happening now. i am so troubled because i can't figure out with. it. ie sense of vengeance -- can't figure out what will stop it. the sense of vengeance. avenging and avenging come i don't know what will stop it in . when dan and his colleagues were there, no journalist had been killed. so it was a different situation than now.

now, the only journalists covering somalia are local journalists and they are incredibly brave. i am in touch with a number of somali journalists. if we didn't have any journalists and that, we would know what's happening. we would be able to respond or get behind her advocate for policies that might actually improve things. i am in all of the journalists who actually take upon themselves to cover conflict zones or places where their lives are at risk. tavis: you did a special for cnn at one and talking about this very issue. >> yes, called dying to tell the story. my. remy -- we went to seven different countries to understand why rimless do what they do and what that dog does to them. one could really interesting incident in my book, when we visited kris jenner among poor, one of the bravest people i have ever met. but she is doing her job -- , oneed christian amanpour

of the bravest people i have ever met. but she's doing her job so that people understand what is going on in the world. threats of what we need to understand and the will to be informed and engaged, that is sometimes a challenge. tavis: i am seeing more and more women who are courageously putting themselves out and npr has some courageous reporters. laura logan comes to mind at cbs when she was over there. obviously, christian and others. i'm not trained to pull names. i'm just making the point that there are more women courageous now than ever to get these stories out. what do you make of this? >> i said -- i shared an office with marianne fitzgerald. she was so insanely brave. she got more stories than the guys sometimes. she was beautiful. tavis: that helps. >> absolutely. why not? i was a journalist myself in kenya but i wasn't covering war zones.

of course, women are just as rate as men and sometimes even braver. tavis: tell me about your son dan. i don't want to color that question too much deliberately good but tell me about dan. courageous, active, creative spirit. he saw the light in people. esop potential. he was a closet artist. he created journals that we did not even know about. after he was killed, we discovered about 20 journals that he had sort of locked away. and those we transformed into a series of books. i have had the joy of watching those oaks inspire people all over the planet to really find their own creative's ark and their own sense of activism. about his professional choices and decisions to do what he was doing as a photojournalist. >> i suppose in a way he -- my footsteps. he was trailing me when as following people in nairobi for many years and taking photographs for me. so it was a very natural thing.

but when he heard about a terrible famine in somalia, they wanted to go find out for himself what was happening. he went in with a friend from reuters. his photographs were among the first to awaken the world to the famine that was raging there. it helped launch the operation restore hope and bring in the marines. you know yourself. it is very compelling when you have that power, your perceived power. he went back again and again for the next year and became the photojournalist for reuters in the country. he was not a cowboy. he was a very cautious person. everybody wanted to be with him because he had been brought up in africa. so his decisions were very conscious big when he went in that final time, he was under protection and there was no reason to believe that he would be killed. witho get -- but together three other journalist, he was stoned and beaten to death. in the book, there is an image.

three years before he was killed, he did that picture. tavis: he ended up being subjected to what he drew. what do you make of that? >> i don't know. i have grappled with all of these questions. i believe that spirits have an enduring quality. emerson always talked about the one thing in the world of value is the active soul. and i don't think that soul necessarily dies after we are dead and maybe there is a sense of sometimes we know more than we think we know about our lives and our demise. tavis: emerson talks about an active soul. your subtitle is a restless soul . i know that mothers -- i know it's not supposed to be this way. parents are not supposed to bury their children. i recognize that you never close on the death of a loved one the way you close on a house. how do you can do terms -- i don't want to say peace with it, but had you come to terms with losing a son? >> i'm so glad you didn't say the word closure.

after dan was killed, i realize i had to transform that horror into something that had purpose and value it immediately, we get very involved with journalists at risk. we created a foundation that is all about creative activism and it's about all about those great effect a people that i got to interview in nairobi. andocus on people in arts media for good. so every moment in every day of my life, i get to wake up and work with amazing people and nurture them in the way that i might have nurtured my son or my grandchildren that he might have had. we have a loss of any kind, it's important that you find something to focus on two takes you out of the horrific sorrow. you have to go through it, but don't remain in the grease. find something that you can nurture the way that you would that being a loved. tavis: is it your way of saying that you are no longer searching for meaning, that you found what you need to be doing for the rest of your life? >> i think i will continue to be

an active and restless soul. i have found tremendous peace and joy beyond my wildest imagination in my deepest sorrow when i was there in the sense of possibility. and i think that what i do which is help nurture their attention, not only for the best for themselves, but also for the world. it is not always easy. but it's -- i'm never bored, not for a minute. and again to continue being a curious soul, like you, you know? tavis: yeah. did me a sense of what it has , as ano your life american, to have lived abroad. >> it is the best thing ever. when it was 16, i was a foreign it stains student -- a foreign exchange student living with an uncle who was defending nelson mandela. so people who were tragically

brainwashed about anybody of color as being -- you had to become a part. so that initially, to realize -- i'm from iowa -- that the world i hadt exactly what perceived it to be, it gave me less for much more and have traveled to many countries. it is in that travel where we see the scripts we are given i just really scripts. other people see the world in a completely different way. and maybe more clever or more brighter than the way we are perceiving it can tavis: the american people are a very caring people and all it takes is for some disaster to happen for you to see that kind of outpouring of concern. i sometimes fret and fear that come as hard as photojournalist and foreign correspondents work to empower us with information -- with information, is because we are jaded or cynical or nativist or quite frankly just busy trying to navigate our own lives in a country where are own

democracies being threatened by poverty and other issues, that we don't pay attention, that we don't connect to what is happening in places like kenya or somalia or whatever. say a word to me about how journalists navigate oohing the kind of work, their calling, their profession, their vocation, knowing that there are a bunch of folks back home and some don't get it and most won't. >> it is pretty tough. in the congress part of that come if we can educate children -- right now, in america, the world doesn't exist. if we bring news into classrooms -- and i think it was every four cnn had a wonderful newsroom and maybe there still some attempt -- but the only way you can engage people and they are older is if they have caught the bug when they are younger. the canadians do that with better than probably we do. it is engagement in the sense that you have the potential to do something. it's teaching people that they can be the creative activist in

their own environment and in the world, the larger world. tavis: thank you for sharing your story. i appreciated. the book is called "in the heart of life, a restless soul commissioners for meaning and a bond that nothing could break." eldon. memoir by kathy at the heart of the stories the death of her 22-year-old son dan, a third journalist in mogadishu. a photojournalist in mogadishu. that is our show for tonight. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley on pbs.org. tavis: join me next time for a conversation with henry louis gates junior about his new six- part series "african-american." that is next time.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more.