Discovering Wes Moore Characters

Nikki is Wes’s older half-sister. She has trouble fitting in when her family moves to the Bronx and switches high schools several times.

Shani is Wes’s younger sister. Unlike Wes, Shani becomes a bookworm at a young age and is generally a peaceful, quiet girl. When Lateshia hits her one day, Wes is enraged and confronts Lateshia.

Westley is Wes’s father, a committed radio journalist and a peaceful, beloved man. His sudden death when Wes is three years old leaves Wes’s family in difficult financial straits, and it leaves a painful void in Wes’s life that never entirely leaves him.

Bill is Joy’s first husband, whom she met in college in the 1960s. Shortly after they graduate and have Nikki together, Bill’s drug use worsens, and he becomes physically abusive. Joy’s standing up to him and leaving with Nikki is a testament to her fierce resilience.

Ozzie is one of Wes’s first friends in his Bronx neighborhood. Wes meets him on the basketball court and is thrilled to be invited to join Ozzie’s game.

Eddie is Justin’s father and is divorced from Carol. A Black Panther back in the 1970s, he instructs the young Wes and Justin on the importance of Black pride.

Howard is Wes’s uncle. He acts as a mentor to Wes, talking sense into him by discouraging him from pursuing a career in the NBA, presenting statistics about the unlikelihood of his success. Wes is subsequently grateful that Howard did so.

Randy is a White Riverdale friend of Wes’s who comes to the baseball game Wes organizes in his neighborhood. The game ends badly after Deshawn provokes Randy into a series of fights.

Lateshia is a girl in Wes’s neighborhood who hits Shani one day. Enraged, Wes and Aunt BB storm off and confront Lateshia.

Aunt BB is Wes’s aunt, who accompanies him to confront Lateshia about hitting Shani.

Jason is another student at Valley Forge. He is originally from Wes’s neighborhood, and his parents told Wes’s mother, Joy, about Valley Forge—something Wes holds against Jason in the early days before he has adjusted to the school.

Sergeant Austin is a high school sophomore at Valley Forge, who pranks Wes into believing that he has given Wes a map to escape campus, when in reality the map leads into the middle of the woods, where faculty await him.

Colonel Batt is the officer who allows Wes to call his mother on the night they catch him running away.

Ty Hill is a Black 19-year-old Cadet Captain at Valley Forge, whose discipline and charisma impress Wes and make him realize what real leadership looks like.

Zinzi is Mama’s son, whom Wes befriends during his semester abroad. When Wes is about to head home, Zinzi is about to head off for his tribe’s rites of initiation into manhood, a process that fascinates Wes.

Zed is the White Afrikaner driver who picks Wes up from the airport in South Africa.

Alicia is the other Wes’s teenage girlfriend and the mother of his first two children. Wes impregnates her when they are 15, and he has no sense of a father’s responsibilities or intention to carry them out.

Paris is Wes’s friend from his Bronx neighborhood, who confronts Wes about going to a White school and makes him uncomfortable.

Dalio is Wes’s friend at Valley Forge. While hanging out in town one night, Wes and Dalio are assaulted by drunken teens.

Bruce Prothero is the police officer slain by the other Wes. He was a father of five young children.

Deshawn is Ozzie’s friend, whom Wes meets on the basketball court.