When Wes Moore was 12, cops spotted him and a few other boys spray painting a wall near his home in Bronx, New York. A cop nabbed the boys, cuffed them and threw them in the back of a van. “I vowed to myself at that point I would never do it again,” said Moore (at right). “And a week later, I was out there doing it again. It was at this point that my mother said, ‘I’ve got to intervene.’”
Around the same time in Baltimore, another Wes Moore with a drug dealing big brother as a role model lived a life of crime, one that later landed him in prison for life. “I realized the truth is that his story could have been mine, and the tragedy is that my story could have been his,” said Moore, talking about his new book The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates. “The largest point of my book is helping us all understand how little separates us all from another life altogether.”
Moore, now 31, was sent to military school in Pennsylvania when his mother, Joy, stepped in. Along the way, Moore also benefited from the support of other family members and wise advisers. He ended up a John’s Hopkins Phi Betta Kappa graduate and a Rhodes Scholar with model good looks that landed him as one of People magazine’s top 50 bachelors. He fought as an officer in Afghanistan in 2005 and 2006, and served as a special assistant to secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. Now married and living in Jersey City, N.J., he works for Citigroup in global technology and alternative investments. He was recently invited by Oprah Winfrey to discuss his book on her April 27 show.
The other Wes Moore (at left), 34, is serving a life sentence without parole in Maryland’s Jessup Correctional Institute’s maximum-security unit. In 2000, he played a part in a botched robbery that resulted in the death of an off-duty Baltimore police officer and father of five. The trigger-man was Moore’s half-brother, Tony.
At the time of the murder, the author had just received word he had been awarded the Rhodes Scholarship, and was studying in South Africa. “My mother called me and said, ‘I have something crazy to tell you, there are wanted posters all over the neighborhood, my neighborhood, for someone for the murder of a police officer whose name is also Wes Moore,” said Moore. “And that’s when I first learned about [the other] Wes Moore.”
On December 11, 2000, The Baltimore Sun ran an article about how Moore, despite his troubled childhood, had just received The Rhodes Scholarship. At the same time, The Sun was running stories — eventually more than 100 in all — about four African-American men who were arrested for the 2000 murder.
“And the more I learned about him through articles [that appeared in The Baltimore Sun], I saw how much we had in common, aside from our name,” Moore continued. “We both came from single-parent households, we both had trouble in school and in our neighborhoods growing up, we were both around the same age, and that’s what triggered me to learn more about the other Wes Moore.
“I wanted to know how it happened. How do two kids who have similar backgrounds end up in two completely different places,” he said. “I was heading off to England on a Rhodes Scholarship and he’s getting ready to spend the rest of his life in a maximum security prison. That’s why I wanted to learn more and that’s why it haunted me.”
Moore’s life and career has certainly been blessed but it could have ended up differently, which is why he dedicates his time to helping others be successful in life. He is passionate about supporting US veterans and examining the roles education, mentoring and public service play in the lives of American youth. He serves on the board of the Iraq Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) and founded an organization called STAND! through Johns Hopkins University that works with Baltimore youth in the criminal justice system.
For his national book tour, Moore is partnering with three nonprofits: IAVA, the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship and 100 Black Men of America (whose Eagle Academy high school students he addressed on May 5; below, right). Moore’s goal is to highlight these three organizations and the contributions they are making to the lives of students, law enforcement and military veterans and our communities. What’s more, two organizations will receive 10 percent of Wes’ proceeds for the life of the book. One, the US Dream Academy, focuses on creating opportunities for children who have one or both parents incarcerated. The other, City Year, unites young people of all backgrounds for a year of full-time service, giving them the skills and opportunities to change the world.
The intention of the book is not only an exploration of the why, but a primer on how to help other Wes Moores. “How we can affect the lives of people. How we can make our communities better,” explained Moore, whose book includes an extensive, 30-page list of organizations where readers can help. “I hope people use this book as a guide for us to shape our impacts on the lives of others.”
The Other Wes Moore began upon the author’s return to the states after studying in Oxford for the Rhodes. Compelled by curiosity, he wrote the other Wes Moore a note and a month later received a letter from Jessup. “I was surprised that he wrote, I was surprised at how honest and transparent he was, I was surprised at how intelligent he was after reading the letter and getting a better understanding of who he was,” said Moore. “And one letter turned to dozens of letters. And those dozens of letters turned into dozens of visits.”
Through over 200 hours of interviews in the last five years with the other Wes Moore as well as friends and family of both Wes Moores, the author produced his gripping account of their similar yet jarringly different lives. A sad similarity is their growing up fatherless, and the pain it caused. Moore’s father, a radio and television journalist, died at the age of 34 when the author was just three and living in Southern Maryland. The other Wes Moore never had his father in his life.
“Wes said to me in one of our conversations: ‘Your father wasn’t there because he couldn’t be. My father wasn’t there because he chose not to be,’” said Wes. “It is a really interesting point. And the hole we know boys feel growing up without their fathers, you find kids will spend so much time and energy trying to fill that hole, and unfortunately kids look to very dangerous ways of filling it. That void can not be overstated and [neither can] the importance of kids having loving parents and guardians because they will help shape decisions made later on.”
And now, due to the other Wes Moore, the five children of the slain police officer don’t have a father, and neither do the other Wes Moore’s four children and Tony Moore’s three. “It goes to show,” said Moore, “how one decision can impact dozens and dozens of lives.”
Photos courtesy of Wes Moore.