Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City

by Wes Moore with Erica L. Green (One World 2020; printed in the US by Random House)

In April of 2015, a young man named Freddie Gray died in police custody in Baltimore, Maryland. The Black Lives Matter movement was two years old, and people were beginning to pay attention to the number of young Black men, often unarmed, who were dying in encounters with police. The city of Baltimore became the scene of protests and riots over five days, April 25 – 29. Moore and Green focus on eight people who lived through these protests: Tawanda Jones, a teacher whose brother, Tyrone West, had died in police custody in 2013, and she has never given up her fight for justice for him; John Angelos, the owner of the Baltimore Orioles; Marc Partee, the Inner Harbor police commander; Greg Butler, who almost overcame the odds of leaving the ghetto of West Baltimore for a college education and an athletic career; Nick Mosby, a Baltimore City Councilman married to Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby; Anthony Williams, manager of a popular Baltimore skating rink known as the Shake & Bake; Jenny Egan, a juvenile public defender in Baltimore; and Billy Murphy, a Baltimore attorney and former mayoral candidate. There is an introductory timeline of Freddie Gray’s short life (premature birth, lead poisoning in early childhood, interrupted education, life on the streets, encounters with the law and imprisonment) and, in more detail, the fateful day–April 12, 2015, when Freddie was arrested for making eye contact with a police officer at 8:40 am and trying to run away. Seven days later, he was declared dead. Then, in short chapters of just a few pages each, Moore and Greene advance the story of Baltimore’s riots as seen through the eyes of these eight people. Two of them are white (Jenny Egan and John Angelos); the rest are African-American.

This is followed by an epilogue that tells what has happened to the eight people since 2015. And then Wes Moore’s “Author’s Note 2020”, which considers what happened and what needs to be done. In a way, this was my favorite part of the book; it provides a glimpse into Moore’s thinking about how to begin to solve America’s problems with racism and poverty. I wish I could include that entire Note here, but instead I will just copy out some sentences which really resonate with me:

*Freddie’s short life underscores a dramatic truth: wealth and income inequality define modern American life.

*Some critics will counter that poverty is a choice made by those who are lazy or who lack the desire to change their lives for the better. I agree that poverty is a choice. But that choice is not made by the people who live under its oppressive effects. Rather, the choice is ours. It’s the choice of the government that represents our priorities and allocates our investments. It’s a choice reinforced by the companies we patronize and the organizations we support.

*In America, help from society is closely indexed to your ability to work. Those disconnected from the labor market. . . are largely excluded from the societal safety net. . . . Our society’s insistence on limiting help to those who “deserve it,” as indicated by their status in the labor market, has a profound impact on the capacity of those living in deep poverty to escape.

*. . . There are few impacts as pernicious and unrelenting on the development and life prospects of people than lead poisoning. Lead poisoning is a nationwide and preventable crisis.

*It’s our time to use our individual voices, power, will, and privilege to address economic injustice. To fight for those who have been consistently left out. Pay homage to those who worked tirelessly to clean and fix houses, roads, and bridges that they were not allowed to live in or travel on. Those who built economies that they could not participate in. Those who were repeatedly asked to be patient, told that the American story would include them, but never saw their place in line advance.Those who were unknowingly writing the American story, but were never acknowledged as authors. . . .

And this quote from the Prologue: This book is about more than Freddie Gray’s death and its aftermath. This book is about more than Baltimore. It’s about privilege, history, entitlement, greed, and pain. And complicity. Mine. All of ours.

At this writing, Wes Moore is a candidate for Governor of Maryland.

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

by Wes Moore (Random House/One World, 2010)

Born in Baltimore, Wes Moore spent part of his childhood in a rough neighborhood there, later moving with his mother and sisters to another rough neighborhood in The Bronx. He was in trouble a lot, despite the support and discipline he received from his mother Joy and other relatives. They contrived to get him out of the local public schools and sent him to a pretty cushy private school outside the city, but Wes continued to skip school, neglect his assignments, and get into various kinds of trouble. Eventually, Joy carried out her threat to send him to a military school, and it was there that he finally straightened out and began a path that would take him to community college, then Johns Hopkins University, a Rhodes scholarship, a tour in Afghanistan, a White House fellowship and eventually, a run for governor of Maryland (in progress). By all accounts, a success story.

The other Wes Moore grew up in the same Baltimore neighborhood, but his fate would be very different. Despite his mother Mary’s best efforts, he insisted on following his older brother’s example. Tony was “in the game”, dealing drugs. He tried to dissuade his little brother from emulating him, but as we know, children copy behavior more than they listen to warnings. Wes was the same way. Though intelligent and talented, he became mixed up in the world of illegal drugs. He was in and out of prison throughout his adolescence. He and Tony were both arrested and convicted in the murder of a moonlighting Baltimore City police officer, Sergeant Bruce Prothero, in 2000. Tony, convicted as the shooter, died in prison at only 38 years old. Wes was sentenced to life without parole and remains in the Jessup Correctional Institution. A story of failure and blame.

Connected by the coincidence of having the same name, the similarities and differences in the lives of these boys/young men are the focus of this book. Wes Moore, the gubernatorial candidate, asks, “What made the difference?” Why did one grow up to be a criminal, while the other went on to serve with distinction in the army, receive an extraordinary education, and enter politics? Wes the politician doesn’t have an answer. He was fascinated enough by their parallel lives to reach out by letter to the other Wes Moore in prison. A correspondence ensued, and eventually, he began visiting him in prison; their conversations form part of the basis for this book. In the Introduction, the author writes, “The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his. . . . It’s unsettling to know how little separates each of us from another life altogether.”

In the beginning of Part III, “Paths Taken and Expectations Fulfilled”, Wes-the-Success asks, “Do you think we’re all just products of our environments?” Wes-the-Failure replies, “I think so, or maybe products of our expectations.”

“Others’ expectations of us or our expectations for ourselves?”

“I mean others’ expectations that you take on as your own.”

I realized then how difficult it is to separate the two. The expectations that others place on us help us to form the expectations of ourselves.

“We will do what others expect of us,” Wes said. “If they expect us to graduate, we will graduate. If they expect us to get a job, we will get a job. If they expect us to go to jail, then that’s where we will end up too. At some point you lose control.”

Successful Wes is dismayed at how easily Prisoner Wes dodges his responsibility for the actions that brought him to where he is. But he is unable to pinpoint just how he escaped his namesake’s fate. reflecting on the different fates that could easily have been exchanged for one another.

An inspirational book, which does not leave the reader with a pat answer to the question it poses.