What do these two people have in common? Is it just their name? The suggestion from this book is that perhaps the reader needs to decide for themselves how deep the connection really goes. When the author ends the book by reminding the reader of all his awards, is he just bragging? Certainly not; he is encouraging the reader to feel heartbroken for the Other one, the one who didn't get the privileges that the author received.
Clearly, the author deeply identifies with the other Wes Moore, because he spends so much of the story explaining that other man's life. Why should a memoir also include the story of someone else? Because the reasons for celebrating the accomplishments of the author are the same reasons that the reader might want to mourn for the life in prison, for the two lives lost by a broken man's murderous hand, and most importantly, for the scarcity and societal brokenness that left the other Wes so disenfranchised.
The story paints a picture of enfranchisement, but also of privilege, because the "enfranchisement" in Wes Moore's life (the author, that is) comes involuntarily. In fact, he literally tries to escape the private school and military school that enfranchised him to his seat of power. In a way, that's the true premise of the companion stories: the other Wes's story shows the reader that the author feels a duty to remind the reader that he got what he got by chance and fate, and the other Wes was given a different path, but not a worthless one.
