The title of a collaborative effort between Wes Moore and Erica L. Green—Five Days—refers to a span of time which threatened to detonate into the worst exhibition of rioting in an American city since the violence in Los Angeles in 1994 sparked by outrage over the inexplicable acquittal of white policemen captured on video brutally beating a black man half to death. The subtitle, “The Fiery Reckoning of an American City” refers to the city in this these tensions escaped. The stimulating event was what in many ways could accurately termed just the latest in a seemingly never-ending series of deaths of black men at the hands of police officers across the country. It was April 2015 and this particular victim was named Freddie Gray whose death in the custody of law enforcement introduced a brand new dimension into this plague: death as the result of just plain pure lack of interest in preserving humanity. Gray’s eventual death while in a coma came as the result traumatic injuries suffered during police custody though the exact cause of those injuries has never been adequately explained. It is an “incident” that still remains under scrutiny if not investigation by those not associated with law enforcement.
“Incident” is also the title of one of the most famous poems to come out of the Harlem Renaissance. Composed by poet Countee Cullen, this short work of verse recalls the writer’s first visit to Baltimore when he was a young child. The only thing he recalls from that stay which lasted more than half a year was the day another little boy about his age—but different notably in his being white—stuck out his tongue and proceeded to call—without any provocation—the N-word. The poem succinctly captured a systemic problem in the Maryland city back then that it has never managed to shake. Baltimore has seemed to always been simmering pot of racial tension ready to explode and the unexplained circumstances surrounding the death of Freddie Gray combined with other recent high profile cases of blacks men being killed in police custody around the country combined with an almost universally perfect and unblemished record of none of those law enforcement officers ever facing punishment or consequences all combined to produce the situation over those five days in which the entire country was nervously watching Baltimore to see what would happen.
Five Days is not the result of a successful author on the lookout for a juicy subject for his next book. He was born in Baltimore, the son of a popular radio personality and he came to literary prominence with his book The Two Wes Moores which related the true story of the divergent paths open to new young boys sharing the same name and born in the same town. As a result, Baltimore is a subject the authors knows well and cares about deeply. But Five Days is not a subjective report based on observation of a single outsider’s point of view What Moore attempts to bring to the tragic story of Freddie Gray is precisely that element which was sorely missing in those heated days following the “incident” while in police custody: broad perspective. The story of the incident and the aftermath is presented through multiple narratives. Not just multiple narratives, in fact, but a wide ranging kaleidoscope of points of view: from police captain to street activist refusing to let the matter fade away to the owner of the Baltimore Orioles and beyond.
Typically in books related to crime and unanswered questions, the point is to find answers. Whether owing to Moore’s realizing the unlikelihood of that particular intent ever being satisfied or Moore’s beginning the project with a goal already in mind, answers to questions that have steadfastly remained murky and obscure are not forthcoming. Instead, Moore’s tome is an insightful and illuminating demonstration of the fundamental complexity of an “incident” like on which stimulating the actions and the analyses and interpretations of those actions which the book recounts. Instead of presenting answers, the book raises questions that perhaps many never thought to wonder about because they were only seeing the entire sordid tale through their own limited perspective.
