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Left: The Business man
Right: Prisoner

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Book Summary of The Other                Wes Moore

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Book Summary of The Other                Wes Moore

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This story was written based on a true story about two boys, both with the name Wes Moore. The two grew up in the same neighborhood but their fate was much different. One landed himself a prison cell for murdering a police officer while the other Wes Moore thrived as a business person. Although each Wes Moore grew up on the streets of Baltimore, family ultimately was the factor in their outcomes in life.

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“Your father wasn’t there because he couldn’t be, my father wasn’t there because he chose not to be. We’re going to mourn their absence in different ways.” (Moore, 1)

This quote really summarizes the reason for the choices made by Wes Moore, the murder. The absence of his father effected what decisions he made because he did not have a father figure in his life.

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“Wes, you are not going anywhere until you give this place a try. (Moore, 95)

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We find, fund and create programs that generate meaningful results for New York's poorest residents.

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“If you won’t listen that’s on you. You have the potential to do so much more, go so much further. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, right?” (Moore, 72)

I like this quote because Wes Moore is being told that he has the potential to be something much bigger than he is but he needs to take advantage of his talents.

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Wes Moore is the author of this non-fiction book.

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There are two Wes Moores from Baltimore.

One is a Johns Hopkins University graduate, a military officer, and a Rhodes Scholar. The other is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison for murder.

It`s hard to imagine a more unlikely pairing: one a celebrated student, college football hall of famer, White House fellow; the other, in a maximum security prison serving a life sentence for murder.

But how did they become aware of each other?

"There was this-- this terrible robbery of a jewelry store. And an off duty policeman was killed," Wes Moore's mother Joy Moore told CBS Sunday Morning.

Joy called her son, who was studying in South Africa. She said police were looking for a man in Baltimore with his name.

The posters read: "Wanted Wes Moore: Assumed to be armed and very dangerous."

"Part of me, when I first heard it, was, wow, I`m glad Wes is so many thousand miles away that they weren`t looking for my son," said Joy.

The studious Wes Moore couldn`t get the other Wes Moore out of his mind.

He began visiting him in prison and found a man who was troubling and complicated, but also, more reflective than he`d expected.

"I learned just how much we-- we had in common, and more than just our name," said Moore.

Both men grew up in nearly identical drug-ridden areas where both were making names for themselves on the streets and as behavior and academic problems at school. Also, both men were raised by single moms.

On the face of it, they were living parallel lives, but in reality, they were heading in very different directions. Here are their not so simple stories.
Wes Moore #1
Before Wes Moore was four-years-old, his world unraveled. His father, Big Wes, as his family called him, a thirty-four-year-old television journalist in Maryland, died suddenly as his young son watched.

"I started hearing him come down the stairs and I ran to the stairs. And then he collapsed. I remember my mother running in from-- from the kitchen and a pot falling and-- and just chaos all around me," Moore said. "And I just remember just staring."

In the years following her husband`s death, Joy struggled emotionally and financially. She was a widow and a single mother supporting three children.

She saw their neighborhood outside Baltimore turning more and more dangerous. So she moved her family to live with her parents in New York.
But their Bronx neighborhood would prove to be worse than the one they`d left.

There were a lot of opportunities to get into trouble.

"There were some times I really did feel like I was losing my son," said Joy.
Wes Moore #2
Back in Baltimore, the other Wes Moore barely knew his father.

His mother, Mary Moore, had goals for her children: To finish school and go to college and to get a good job.

It was a hope that Mary herself had grasped but couldn`t hold. She was the first person in her family to go to junior college and was accepted to nearby Johns Hopkins University.

But when her funding fell through, she had to work full time instead, often leaving Wes with his older brother.

"I had to be on the streets and-- and be in the life of crime. I thought that was my only real talent," said Moore, via phone from prison.

He was very close to his brother, Tony.

Over the years, Mary says she knew Tony was becoming a well-known drug dealer. But she thought he was taking a "do as I say not as I do" approach with Wes.

"Tony was streetwise and all that," said Mary. "And he knew what was out there and he didn`t want that same thing for his brother."

But by the time Wes was thirteen, he was already following in his big brother`s footsteps. Soon, he says, he started making thousands of dollars a day and never looked back.

"You know I-- I thought everything was supposed to come to me at-- at light speed," said Moore. "But when I was given opportunities to-- to take my time and be patient. I-- I brushed passed them."
Wes Moore #1 - A Second Chance
Around the same time, up in the Bronx, eleven-year-old Wes Moore, like the other Wes, was looking to the streets for a sense of belonging.

"It starts off with little stuff. Walking into a corner store and stealing a candy bar," he said. "It's just amazing how fast that graduates to much more serious stuff."

He even had a nickname in the neighborhood: Kid Kupid. He tagged up the walls around the Bronx with the initials "KK."

"There are quite a few Bronx walls that had a-- had the two Ks next to it," he said.

But one day, he got caught.

"A cop car turns the corner and you hear that distinctive, like whop-whop, you know the-- the cop sirens," he said. "They grabbed me put the cuffs on me. And next thing I know I was in the back of the police car. And I`m terrified. I couldn`t even imagine that phone call to my mom telling them, well, you need to come pick up your son."

That call never came. The cops undid their handcuffs and told them to get moving.

"All I was looking for was acceptance," he said. "And if that meant spray painting some walls, skipping some classes and getting into fights, that's what I was going to do."

Joy was worried her son was headed down the wrong path.

"I said, no, not again. I lost my husband. I`m mot going to lose my son," she said.

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There are two Wes Moores from Baltimore. One is a Johns Hopkins University graduate, a military officer, and a Rhodes Scholar. The other is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison for murder.

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Far too many Americans are caught in a whirlpool of poverty, broken families, failed schools and self-destructive behavior that is replicated generation after generation. The imprisoned Wes Moore became a grandfather last year at 33.

The writer Wes Moore offers clues from his own experience about how boys get sucked into that whirlpool.

His father, a radio and television journalist, died of a virus after a hospital emergency room - seeing only a disoriented, disheveled black man - misdiagnosed him and sent him home to get "more sleep," Mr. Moore writes. The writer Wes grew up in a poor, drug-ravaged neighborhood of the Bronx.

His mother worked multiple jobs and scrounged to send him to Riverdale Country School, an elite prep school, but Wes felt out of place among wealthy, white students - and his black friends at home teased him for going to "that white school." Wes skipped classes, let his grades slip, hung out with a friend who was dealing drugs, and collided with the police.

Despairing, Wes's mother dispatched him to a military school. There he finally began to soar.

In the case of the other Wes, there were some moments when he almost escaped. His mother was earning a college degree at Johns Hopkins - which probably would have provided the family a ladder to the middle class - when Reagan-era budget cuts terminated her financial aid and forced her to drop out.

Then the criminal Wes almost found his footing with the Job Corps. There he earned his G.E.D., testing near the top of his class, and began reading at a college level. He learned carpentry skills - but afterward never found a good job and tumbled back into his old life.

The second basic truth underscored by this story is that kids can escape the whirlpool - but they need help.

The author Wes Moore escaped partly because of family support and partly because he was helped by mentors at his military school. Not surprisingly, Mr. Moore believes passionately in mentoring, partly because so many boys in poor families have no father at home and lack male role models. He mentors boys and girls in Baltimore and New York and is directing some of the profits from his book to two organizations that provide mentoring.

One is City Year, which supports young people taking a year of public service to work in impoverished neighborhoods. Another is the U.S. Dream Academy, which supports children whose parents are in prison (and who are consequently at great risk themselves of tumbling into trouble).

There are no quick fixes to solve poverty. But carefully conducted experiments show that some strategies work: intensive early childhood education modeled after the Abecedarian Project, rigorous schools like those in the KIPP network, volunteer reader tutoring like that done by Start Making a Reader Today, and subsidized jobs programs like Canada's Self-Sufficiency Project that build the employment habit. These approaches have a much better record than juvenile detention and are far cheaper.

Mr. Moore ends his book with a call to action, arguing that each of us can play a role through volunteer work or donations. His own trajectory underscores that lives are at stake, and they can be turned around.

Correction: June 13, 2010

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Far too many Americans are caught in a whirlpool of poverty, broken families, failed schools and self-destructive behavior that is replicated generation after generation. The imprisoned Wes Moore became a grandfather last year at 33. The writer Wes Moore offers clues from his own experience about how boys get sucked into that whirlpool.

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Chapter

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One of the  main character Wes Moore was sent to prison for murder charges.

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The Wes Moore who was successful and did not get sent to jail attended John Hopkins University and graduated. He also became a military officer and a Rhodes scholar.

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The Other Wes Moore's setting takes pace in the rough city of Baltimore, Maryland.

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“When it is time for you to leave this school, leave your job, or even leave this earth, you make sure you have worked hard to make sure it mattered you were even here.”