Blog

There is a specific kind of joy in watching a friend be truly seen by the world. Not just any friend, either, but one who helped free me from four decades of imprisonment when he was a Yale University law student. I recently had that experience while listening to Dwayne Betts sit down with Conan O’Brien on the latter’s wildly popular podcast. Talk about surprise! I’m a regular listener to the Conan O’Brien podcast and was amazed – and impressed – to hear Dwayne’s voice mix with Conan’s!

Since when do funders help do the work of going into prisons to bring Freedom Libraries Inside?

I mean help as in lifting heavy boxes to sort the thousands of books that live on the beautifully handcrafted bookshelves that Freedom Reads is founded upon. But that is just what happened at California Medical Facility (CMF), staff and supporters, together, opening Freedom Libraries for the sick and injured prisoners of CMF.

Every year, I celebrate March 4th as if it's my birthday, because in some ways, it is my birthday. 21 years ago on March 4th, I walked out of prison for the first time, and walked back into the world as somebody who had earned a lot of new names. Felon, a name I earned when I carjacked a man. Convict, a name I earned over the eight and a half years I spent in prison. Ex-con, the name I earned by walking out of prison, a free man. Shahid, the name I chose because I’d begun to understand that a name can be a future and I wanted to carry one that reminded me that the lives around me mattered.

Every other Wednesday, twenty of us chained and rustled like cattle, formed a motley crew. Destination; courthouse basement. We waited in bullpens, (large holding cells), as if in purgatory drowning in sweat, uncertainty, and fear. Not quite hell, not quite hope. We shared cold benches, bologna sandwiches with green edges, and an unspoken understanding that most of us would not be going home. It was better left unsaid. Words were weaponized against us, in the foreign language of reports and plea offers.

Jimmy Flynn is the kind of person who shows up with his hands, his heart, and his whole self. As a Library Production Associate at Freedom Reads, Jimmy works in the shop each day transforming raw wood slabs into the finished Freedom Libraries that bring powerful books to incarcerated readers. It's skilled, meaningful work, and what fuels him most is the moment those libraries are received. "Seeing the smiles of those on the inside, the joy and excitement they express from being gifted with libraries," he says, is what he enjoys most.

For years, I let the mistake on Wikipedia remain, the one that says my birthday is February 1st. I’ve grown obsessed with dates and remember reading The Big Sea and the Arnold Rampersand biography of Langston Hughes. Remember the ways that Black history month was both how I connected with history and how I connected myself to history. And I enjoyed the moments I shared with Hughes. Maybe I’ve just wanted to be like my mother, who wrote the first poem I ever read. Her birthday is on February 18th, which is the same day as Toni Morrison’s birthday. And when I learned Toni Morrison’s birthday, while in prison, one of the things that I thought deeply about was the ways in which it is easy to forget that Black history is what happens in your home. And that this, too, is American history.

At Freedom Reads, Nicky keeps everything running smoothly behind the scenes. As our Administrative Assistant, she supports the entire staff with their administrative needs, ensures the kitchen is fully stocked, and maintains clean facilities. She also assists the Library Production Team and Chief Production Officer with all their administrative duties. Freedom Library openings take us all over the country, and Nicky is the one who makes sure we get there.

I can only shake my head and wonder how I got through all the crazy things I did in one piece. Alive. When I was 15, my mom stayed on pins and needles every time I left the house. Even when I went to school she worried. Guess I had more energy than focus in those days. Guess, also, it was just a matter of time when I’d find myself in hot water up to my neck. But before winding up in prison for a robbery that netted me a 20-year sentence, I did something that nearly got me killed at age 17.

You probably know that some books don’t politely knock. They show up, sit down, and make themselves very comfortable – sometimes at a level that makes us really uncomfortable. But that discomfort is necessary. These books might unsettle you. They might haunt you. They might leave you feeling some type of way - and then leave you feeling that way for a while.

I’ve always struggled with the beginnings of things, for me it makes the most sense to meander my way into things. In a way, I meandered my way into prison. I took the crash course: petty crime to carjacking before the midterms of my junior year. I get locked up in December and I might as well have gotten locked up in January. End of the year, beginning of the year – you get to imagine where you’ve been and what you’ve become.

What keeps Freedom Reads thriving is the people who believe in the mission and choose to support it. LeRoy General, our Chief Development Officer, is the person who helps connect would-be supporters to our goal of opening a Freedom Library in every cellblock in every prison in the United States.

In her outstanding new book The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans, cognitive scientist and podcaster, Maya Shankar takes a refreshing look at how the typically unsettling process of change can be seen as an opportunity. Change can be frightening and disorienting, but it can also be transformative. Drawing on stories of people who underwent life-altering personal change, including Freedom Reads founder and CEO, Dwayne Betts, the book focuses the reader’s attention on what is possible following reality-changing events. Here is a short excerpt from the chapter entitled “Possible Selves.”