Salon spoke to Moore over the phone about the lessons of his book, the meaning of Barack Obama and the complicated blessings of the American military.
"You came up with the idea for the book after seeing the articles about Wes Moore's trial. Aside from your names, what do you both have in common?"
When he was arrested he was only a few blocks from where I was living. We both grew up in single-parent homes with our mothers, since we didn't have fathers in the household. Even when we were growing up in the different neighborhoods - Baltimore and the Bronx- the tenor of them was similar. We both got disillusioned by school at an early age, and had run-ins with the police.
"And then you decided to contact him in prison ... "
It initially started as pure curiosity on my part. He was actually much more open than I thought. I was surprised he wrote back to my letter. He started by saying when you're in prison you think nobody knows you exist anymore, and he just literally went point by point for every question.
Then I realized there might be a larger story to be told. There were two main factors that made me think I should write this book. One was that I thought about the police officer's family, and the tremendous tragedy that happened to them. The second was something that Wes told me. He said, "Listen, I have wasted every opportunity that I've ever had and I'm going to die in here, so if you can do something to make a difference, you should do it."
Source: http://www.salon.com/2010/05/09/wes_moore_interview/
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