Author urges crowd at King dinner to 'fight for others'

Rhodes scholar, author and Army combat veteran Wes Moore told a crowd of more than a 1,000 people at the Show Me Center on Wednesday night "we are not products of our environment. We are products of our expectations."

Moore, who grew up poor in Baltimore, was the featured speaker at the 11th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration dinner, which centered on the theme of "Living Life Beyond Expectations."

Moore spoke about his book, "The Other Wes Moore," which compared his life and that of another Baltimore resident with the same name.

Moore was a young boy when his father died. By the time he was 11 years old, he was in trouble with the law.

But at 13, his mother sent him away to military school. Ultimately, he said he was mentored and befriended, which helped him turn his life around.

Dancers from STEP UP Leadership Academy perform Wednesday during the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Dinner at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau.Glenn Landberg

The other Moore ended up killing a police officer during an armed robbery and is serving a life sentence.

The speaker, the CEO of BridgeEdU, a national initiative focused on addressing college completion and career placement, said "black and poor didn't define me."

He told the crowd the most important question they will be asked in their lifetimes is, "Who will you choose to fight for?"

He added, "You must live a life where your work lives on longer than you do."

Moore said the slain civil-rights leader would have hoped you "fight for others."

He told the audience, "When Dr. King went through the process of choosing the life he chose, it wasn't because it was easy; it was because he knew it needed to be done."

Moore said King was "an enormously gifted orator, but he also was a person who had no patience for talk." King wanted us to "love uncontrollably," he told the audience, adding it is important for everyone to make their lives matter.

Before Moore's speech, Southeast Missouri State University President Dr. Carlos Vargas-Aburto said administrators, faculty, staff and students have been "engaged in a conversation about diversity."

Vargas said, "There is nothing better than an honest conversation. It is OK to talk about our differences."

Earlier in the evening, students with the STEP UP Leadership Academy entertained the crowd with foot-stomping and hand-clapping routines that drew loud applause.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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