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Chapter 7
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Discovering Wes Moore, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Choice vs. Chance
Mentorship and Support
Community, Identity, and Belonging
Coming of Age
Summary
Analysis
During Wes’s time at Valley Forge junior college, his college guidance instructor suggests that he look into applying to Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore. Wes is skeptical: even though Baltimore is his hometown, the elite, mostly White college always seemed far removed from his environment. Additionally, his SAT scores are bad. She nevertheless has him meet with Paul White, a Black admissions director, who listens to his life story with interest. Months later, Wes is thrilled to learn that he has been accepted on a scholarship. He’s even more thrilled to have made his mother proud, and to have the opportunity to go home to Maryland.
Wes’s skepticism of Johns Hopkins perhaps stems not just from his childhood memories of it, but also from his experience at Riverdale, an elite, predominantly White school where he never fully felt that he belonged. When he meets Paul White and wins a scholarship, it shows Wes’s hard work and good fortune converge to result in a favorable outcome. Things are looking up for Wes, and he at last feels that he has made his mother proud.
Active
Themes
At the end of Wes’s internship at the Mayor of Baltimore’s office, Mayor Schmoke invites Wes to meet with him. Schmoke is a charismatic, well-educated Black man who has tried to heal the deep-seated racial divide in Baltimore. His efforts have been met with praise from the likes of Bill Clinton, but the city still has large problems to tackle.
The narrative jumps ahead again here by a few years. Another combination of hard work and good luck has landed him an internship at the mayor’s office.
Active
Themes
Wes enters Mayor Schmoke’s office, and Schmoke asks him how he has enjoyed the internship. He then asks Wes if he has heard of the Rhodes Scholarship, a prestigious scholarship to Oxford that often produces powerful people and world leaders. Schmoke shows Wes a photo of his own class of Rhodes Scholars and reminisces fondly on what a great time he had studying in England, although he says that being a Black American there is not without its challenges.
Active
Themes
Mayor Schmoke advises Wes to apply for a Rhodes Scholarship, and also to look into the man who created it, Cecil Rhodes. Wes goes to the library and learns that Cecil Rhodes was a virulent racist. He understands that Schmoke wanted him to see, through the example of a Black man attaining the scholarship, that the world once inhabited by people like Rhodes can be changed for the good.
Active
Themes
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Wes reflects on Paul White’s earlier encouragement of him. He’s grateful for people like Paul and Mayor Schmoke. Wes considers the distressing role that privilege and connections play in succeeding in America. For most people of his background, opportunities had been systematically denied in the years since the civil rights movement. Wes thinks how important it is to have people around you that support you, in order to make hard work seem worthwhile. For people at a societal disadvantage who manage to succeed, it’s especially important to pull others up with them, which he feels Paul White and Mayor Schmoke have done for him.
