# data[].attributes.body
Intro: Moore introduces the book, explaining that it is the story of two men born in Baltimore with the same name: Wes Moore. While one of them grows up to achieve great success, the other will spend the rest of his life in prison. The book will examine the decisions that shape our destiny and highlight how easy it is for our lives to take an entirely different direction. While Moore himself won a Rhodes Scholarship while studying at Johns Hopkins University, the other Wes was imprisoned along with his older brother, Tony, for his involvement in a robbery that led to the murder of an off-duty police officer named Sergeant Bruce Prothero.

# data[].attributes.body
chapter 1: Moore describes that when he was 3 years old, he hit his sister Nikki while playing. Moore describes how his mother immigrated at age three to the United States from Jamaica and how she struggled to make a better life for herself. Moore recalls how his father came to his room after the incident with his sister and gave him advice that he would always remember. Moore admits he has only two memories of his father: the memory just described and the memory of his father dying in front of him.

# data[].attributes.body
chapter 2: Both Moore and Wes moved when they were young because their moms wanted to give them better lives but they have very different experiences. Wes’s family moves to Northwoods, a big suburb where Wes’s mother works long hours, while Joy moves from Baltimore to the Bronx so that her parents can help raise her children. Moore’s grandparents enforce strict rules and hardly let Moore out of their sight, whereas Wes spends hours alone each day, and Wes’s older brother Tony struggles to provide guidance for him. Both boys want to feel like they belong and to earn the respect of their peers, but they go about it differently. Wes demands respect by pulling a weapon on another boy, and a lack of guidance and support leaves him vulnerable to making other bad decisions. Moore earns respect by asking to join a basketball game in his neighborhood.

# data[].attributes.body
Chapter 3: Moore didnt really have problems making friends in the Bronx, but he still often feels out of place. He is one of only a few Black students at his private school, Riverdale, and his neighborhood friends tease him about attending. Moore puts a lot of energy into appearing rich enough for his school and tough enough for his neighborhood. His long, complicated drive to school is suggestive of the lengths Moore must go to live his double life, so it’s no surprise that his grades begin to fall. Similarly, when Wes moves to Dundee Village, he's taken away from everything he knows, including his brother. Wes’s mom warns him about the danger of drugs, but she also uses drugs herself, making her warning easy to ignore. Mixed messages and the allure of steady income make drug dealing almost inevitable for Wes, yet his mom naively hopes a hangover will stop him from using again.

# data[].attributes.body
chapter 4: Moore explores the importance of hip-hop, which is extremely influential for him as a teen and helps him build a sense of identity. Hip-hop gave him a way to reconcile the self he presents at his mostly white private school and the self he presents among other young men in his neighborhood. Hip-hop’s global popularity made its visions of Black life and messages of Black pride accessible to Moore’s white classmates, and at the same time, Moore’s devotion to the form and easy memorization of lyrics led his neighborhood peers to respect and trust him as one of their own. In this way, hip-hop formed a bridge between Moore’s two worlds and two selves. Moore broadens this idea from his individual experience to a collective one shared by his generation, arguing that hip-hop expressed his generation’s fears and dreams, helping them feel less alone.