It was 20 years ago this week that Reginald Wayne Betts was released from prison,

and that's a great excuse to replay our conversation from 2023.

This is a very special episode for me.

I'd never met Dwayne before this conversation,

but I was so impressed by him that we stayed in touch, became friends,

and I've even joined the board of his organization, Freedom Reads. He's truly one of the most

remarkable and likable people that I've ever known. My guest today, Reginald Dwayne Betts is a

MacArthur Genius Award winner, founder of the nonprofit Freedom

Reeds, a poet, and a graduate of Yale Law School. He's accomplished all that despite the fact

that he spent more than eight years in prison from the age of 16 to 24. I wasn't a model

prison, but I do think that in a different system that was searching to cultivate the

skills and the talents and the personalities and just the rehabilitation of people inside, I would

have been a model prisoner because I would have had mentors around me.

Welcome to people I mostly admire with Steve Levitt.

Here's someone who beat incredible odds to turn his life around.

But not only that, after graduating from Yale Law School, he could have made enormous

amounts of money.

Instead, he's dedicated his life to helping those to remain behind in prison.

You started an organization called Freedom Reads back in 2020.

Could you tell me what Freedom Reeds is doing?

Freedom Reeds is an organization I started to build libraries in prisons. And what we're doing is building a place for people to commune over books.

We make bookcases that are handmade out of walnut, out of cherry, out of maple.

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