Words have the ability to bring sunshine to the darkest of nights.
What if prison housing units were libraries?
We bring beautifully handcrafted 500-book libraries into prison, and by doing so, bring hope and possibility to our people there. Poet, lawyer, and founding CEO, Reginald Dwayne Betts, knows first hand about the dispiriting forces of a cell. In 1996, at 16-years old, he pled guilty to carjacking a man and was sentenced to 9 years in prison. Freedom Reads is his attempt to make sure others have access to the books that saved his life. Founded in 2020 with a $5.25 million grant from the
Mellon Foundation, Freedom Reads is the only organization in the country with a mission to provide libraries to prisons thereby supporting the efforts of people in prison to imagine new possibilities for their lives. Through our three core initiatives — Freedom Library, Ambassadors, and Stories — Freedom Reads reminds us of the dignity of all people whether serving time, or not, and that our freedom begins with a book.
Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet and lawyer, and the founder and CEO of Freedom Reads. He is also a 2021 MacArthur Fellow. But on some fundamental level, what feels more significant than the awards that he has won or the books that he has published is that he’s helped get three men out of prison who he served time with and is working to get others out. His books include his latest poetry collection, Felon; the memoir, A Question of Freedom; and two previous collections of poetry, Shahid Reads His Own Palm and Bastards of the Reagan Era. In 2019, Betts won the National Magazine Award in the Essays and Criticism category for Getting Out, his New York Times Magazine essay that chronicles his journey from prison to becoming a licensed attorney. Dwayne holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.