WASHINGTON – Wes Moore recalled coming home during a break in school from Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania and tussled with friends who teased him for leaving his West Baltimore neighborhood.
After Moore expressed his frustration about the incident to his uncle, his elder relative gave him a simple message: “It’s not that you changed. They haven’t.”
Today, Moore is a 31-year-old author and entrepreneur who earned a bachelor’s degree in International Relations at Johns Hopkins University, and earned a master’s at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He was a featured speaker at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. He also is a decorated war veteran for military service in Afghanistan.
Moore told part of his life story during a discussion Thursday night at the Open Society Foundations (OSF) office in downtown Washington. OSF co-hosted the event with the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and Center for American Progress.
The evening’s highlight was Moore’s book, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates, which focuses on how Moore shares the same name with a man close in age who is spending the rest of his life in a Maryland prison.
The 75-minute discussion featured Moore and questions from National Public Radio’s Michel Martin about education, juvenile justice system, poverty and race before a crowd of more than 100 policy professionals, including elected officials and law professors.
Moore said his mother, who was in attendance, explained how police “wanted” posters seeking “Wes Moore” were plastered throughout the city. According to the book, Moore the prisoner was involved in a botched jewelry store robbery with his older brother in 2000 that resulted in an off-duty Baltimore police officer being shot and killed.
