Moore

Author and youth advocate Wes Moore will deliver Cornell’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture, “Potential is Universal,” Feb. 11 at 5 p.m. in Sage Chapel. His talk is free and open to the public and is sponsored by Cornell United Religious Work (CURW).

Moore will share the personal story of how education and mentorship turned his life around and how he believes everyone is capable of greatness. He urges his audiences to recognize their potential within and to live up to it, regardless of the barriers and obstacles they may encounter.

“Wes Moore is someone whose work is a contemporary manifestation of the King legacy,” said Rev. Kenneth Clarke, director of CURW. “This is reflective of an approach we’ve been taking for speakers we have invited in past years, with veterans of the black freedom movement of the ’50s and ’60s, which continues in many ways as an ongoing movement for justice and equality. There’s still the unfinished business of the movement. Mr. Moore reflects one aspect of how he addresses that unfinished business.”

Moore’s first book, “The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates” (2010), is a memoir based on his interactions with a man with the same name from his Baltimore neighborhood who was imprisoned for murdering an off-duty police officer – and the parallels the author discovered with his own life. The book was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller.

Moore is committed to helping young people redirect their lives and to supporting the parents, teachers, mentors and volunteers who care for and work with America’s youth. While he was a student at Johns Hopkins University, he founded STAND!, an organization working with Baltimore youths in the criminal justice system.

Raised in Maryland, Moore struggled in private school but went on to graduate with honors from Valley Forge Military College in 1998 and from Johns Hopkins in 2001. A Rhodes scholar, he received a Master of Letters in International Relations from the University of Oxford in 2004. He is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

As a U.S. Army captain, he served in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division. Moore was a White House Fellow in 2006-07, working as assistant to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, before joining Citigroup to work on global technology and alternative investments. He spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

Moore was named among Ebony magazine's “Top 30 Leaders Under 30” in 2007 and “40 Under 40 Rising Stars” by Crain’s New York Business in 2009.

He currently serves on the board of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and the Johns Hopkins University Board of Trustees, is a Clinton Global Initiative Lead program fellow and hosts “Beyond Belief” on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Moore also plans to give a talk for students at Ithaca High School and meet with teenagers at the Greater Ithaca Activities Center Feb. 11.