Five Days Quotes

“Poverty is so concentrated because it is generational and, research shows, created with relentless intention.”
― Wes Moore, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City

“… our fates are profoundly intertwined. We have to take care of one another.”
― Wes Moore, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City

“Some critics will counter that poverty is a choice made by those that are lazy or who lack the desire to change their loves for the better. I agree that poverty is a choice. But that choice is not made by the people who live under its oppressive effects. Rather, the choice is ours. It's the choice of government that represents our priorities and allocates our investments. Its a choice reinforced by the companies we patronize and the organizations we support.”
― Wes Moore, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City

“Five micrograms of lead in a deciliter of blood is the point at which negative impacts are predicted. Thirty-six micrograms were found in Freddie’s blood. These children—including Freddie—were born into homes and neighborhoods that were literally making them sick. He never held a legal job for long and had done time for petty crimes.”
― Wes Moore, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City

“Freddie Gray and so many other boys like him grew up in the type of poverty that permeates everything: how you are educated, the water you drink, the home you live in, the air you breathe, the school you spend most of your day in, the way you are policed, whether or not you will die in the same poverty you were born in. It was that poverty that raised the probability that Freddie would be exactly where he was on April 12, 2015, and then again on April 27, 2015.”
― Wes Moore, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City

“Our country has a long history, and for much of it the intentional policy of the United States was to create hierarchies of people based on their class, race, and gender.”
― Wes Moore, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City

“Throw the bums out" and "Drain the swamp" are popular political slogans. But it's not enough to move people around in a bureaucracy if you don't change the underlying values and let those values reshape tactics and procedures.”
― Wes Moore, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City

“The truth is that our individual efforts are important but insufficient. Our collective action -- the leaders we elect, the institutions administered in the name of the People, the other stanchions at the table --- offers an opportunity for bigger, longer-lasting action.”
― Wes Moore, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City

“(his) actions also underscore the limits of symbolic gestures toward social justice that we also often see in the world of philanthropy. We often pay homage to what needs to change and attempt half measures, but we rarely challenge our own complicity in the structural inequities.”
― Wes Moore, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City

“The stigma and lifelong negative bias that results from even a fleeting encounter with the criminal justice system is absolutely life changing.”
― Wes Moore, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City

“… the criminal justice system affects more than the men whose lives are irrevcocably changed when they encounter the system.”
― Wes Moore, Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City