S18 Ep18: Dwayne (Shaheed) Betts - Freedom Reads
Truth & Justice with Bob Ruff
Bob Ruff
4.5 • 7.8K Ratings
🗓️ 3 May 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Reginald Dwayne Betts was incarcerated as a teenager and spent nearly nine years in prison. While inside, he discovered literature and poetry, including during time in solitary confinement, where books were treated as contraband. After his release, he went on to become a nationally recognized poet, a Yale-trained lawyer, and the founder of Freedom Reads, an organization bringing handcrafted libraries directly into prison cellblocks. His work sits at the intersection of accountability, reentry, dignity, literature, and the question of whether America truly believes people can change. In this incredibly intriguing interview, Bob and Dwayne have a deep and meaningful conversation about not only the work that Dwayne does...but also about identity.
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Transcript
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| 0:22.8 | entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup. From NBII Studios, this is Truth and Justice, a crowdsourced investigation in real time. |
| 0:49.4 | I'm Bob Ruff. |
| 0:50.2 | I'm Bob Ruff. Hello. |
| 1:28.1 | Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Truth and Justice. The Justice Warrior that I'm joined with today has such a unique and layered story. And this is a rare occasion. We're actually spent some time and wrote an intro for you, Dwayne, because there's too much here for me to remember. So let me introduce Duane. This is Duane Betts. |
| 1:32.0 | He was incarcerated as a teenager and spent nearly nine years in prison. |
| 1:37.2 | While inside, he discovered literature and poetry, including during time in solitary confinement, |
| 1:39.3 | where books were treated as contraband. |
| 1:43.9 | After his release, he went on to become a nationally recognized poet, a Yale-trained lawyer, and the founder |
| 1:44.8 | of Freedom Reeds, an organization bringing handcrafted libraries directly into prison cell blocks. |
| 1:50.9 | His work sits at the intersection of accountability, re-entry, dignity, literature, and the |
| 1:55.9 | question of whether America truly believes that people can change. |
| 1:59.7 | Duane, thank you so much. And for the listeners |
| 2:02.6 | that recommended me to get Dwayne on, thank you guys. I just told Dwayne, before we started, |
| 2:07.0 | I've been looking forward to this conversation for a couple of weeks. Once he was recommended, |
| 2:10.7 | I started doing a bunch of research. And what a unique journey that you've been on? So first and |
| 2:15.6 | foremost, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. |
| 2:18.4 | And I thank you. And I think, I also thank the listeners. I think one of the things that it is hard |
... |
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