This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Aug. 31, 2012 - What’s in a name?
That common Shakespearean question took on added poignancy for writer Wes Moore when he discovered that someone with the same name, also living in Baltimore and about the same age, had been convicted in the killing of an off-duty police officer.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Johns Hopkins, a member of the Maryland College Football Hall of Fame, a Rhodes Scholar and White House Fellow, a former special assistant to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, one of Ebony Magazines Top 30 leaders under 30, a featured speaker at the 2008 Democratic National Convention – the author Wes Moore appeared to have everything going for him.
But he also shared many aspects of his background with the convict Wes Moore. Both men were fatherless, had difficult childhoods, had run-ins with the police and trouble in school.
The writer sent a letter to the prisoner, hoping to explore their similarities and their differences, and unexpectedly he received a reply. He began visiting the other Wes Moore, looked into his background and analyzed why and how, at a critical juncture in their lives, one entered a route that led to recognition and the other took the road that led to his spending the rest of his life in the penitentiary.
Moore’s conclusion:
"The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his."
His resulting memoir – “The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates” – was chosen as the First Year Reading Program book for incoming freshmen this fall at Washington University. Moore will give the opening talk in this year’s Assembly Series lectures on Tuesday, Sept. 4, at 7 p.m. at College Hall on the university’s South 40.
Now age 33, Moore lives in New York City but plans to move back to Baltimore soon. He spends his time using a variety of media to spread the message of “The Other Wes Moore,” including working with HBO and Oprah Winfrey on a movie version. He talked with the Beacon about the book, its reception and how it is the most popular selection used by colleges for their incoming freshmen reading events. Here is a condensed and edited version of our conversation.
Beacon: How hard was it for you to write that first letter to the other Wes Moore?
Moore: I think people underestimate how challenging it was. I had known his story for a while before I decided to write the note – how do you write a note to someone you don’t know? When you write a letter you really don’t know whether you are going to get a response. It took a while for me to build up the courage and say I was going to write it.
But I figured, what have you got to lose? I had questions. You kind of see what happens, and if he doesn’t write you back, there’s nothing lost.
Beacon: What did he say in his response?
Moore: In the first letter I asked basic question and told how I had heard about him. In the first letter I got back from, it was everything that I was not expecting. It was one of the most interesting letters I had ever received, and it was at that point I was able to pose more questions.
The only thing I had known about him was what I had read in the paper, that he had spent a lot of time in the juvenile and adult systems, and he was now in prison for felony murder. So when I got the letter back, I was amazed at how interesting and articulate the letter was.
Beacon: About a year later, you made your first visit to him in prison. What was that like?
Moore: That was a hard decision. I had worked with kids in the juvenile justice system, but adult facilities are a beast of a different nature. And I knew him better, but I really didn’t know who this person was or what I was walking into, so there was some amount of trepidation. But during that first visit, I realized how thin that line that separates us really is.
The first visit went well. Initially, the conversation kind of centered around basic ideas – families, Baltimore, that kind of thing. But the longer we sat, the longer we got into things, the more introspective things got. At some point, we got very comfortable. At the end of the hour or hour and a half, when the guard taps you on the shoulder and says time is up, and he goes in one direction and you go in another, that is a pretty jarring reminder of reality.
Beacon: Once you wrote the book, what was the reaction, from Moore and in general? Did he have to agree that you could write the book?
Moore: Without Wes’ cooperation, this story never would have gotten out. I had to talk with teachers, police officers, coaches, and the only way they would have talked with me is if they had his permission. But if I thought I could do something that would help other people, that was the fire behind the book.
Writing a book is not an easy process by any stretch of the imagination. It’s long. It’s time intensive and it’s emotionally intensive.
He read it before it came out. He had two reactions. He was amazed at the amount of research I had been able to do, with everyone who is behind his story, to make sure I got it right. And the second reaction was that he was amazed at how little he had done with his life.
I’ve been pleased not so much that the book sold well but because of how the story is being shared. The most important thing I have seen is how high school and college students are reading it, and watching the commitment of a call of action that it brings. If people had read it, then done nothing about it, the book would have failed.
Beacon: You say that one of the most important lessons of the book, one that really hits home with students, was pointed out by the other Wes Moore.
Moore: I have got to give Wes credit for that. I asked if he and I were the products of our environment, and he said we are the product of our expectations. And that is exactly right. The expectations that people have of themselves aren’t born from nowhere. They are born from the people around them. That is something I thought was a really important point.
We both did at one point exactly what was expected of us.