Tell us more about who you are and what you do?
My name is Reginald Dwayne Betts. For most of my life, I’ve answered the question what do you do by saying: I am a poet. That hasn’t changed. I’m still a poet – but I am also the Founder and CEO of Freedom Reads, an organization that builds beautiful Freedom Libraries and opens them on prison cell blocks. People always wonder how you can build a library or put one on a cellblock. Our libraries are made of three beautifully handcrafted hardwood bookcases that sit about 44 inches high and curve into space. They contain five hundred books, which are accessible from each side of the library. And we put them on cellblocks so that there is beauty and books within reach when people walk out of their cell doors or roll off their bunks.
What inspired your journey as a poet and lawyer?
I went to law school in my early thirties. At 16, I went to prison for carjacking. I served a little over 8 years. When I came home, I went to the University of Maryland, then I got a graduate degree from Warren Wilson in writing. But I couldn’t get a job. I ended up at Yale Law School because I imagined that the skills of a lawyer would serve me whether I could get a job as a lawyer or not. And they have served me, as I’ve gotten 6 friends out of prison by representing them on parole or helping them to get clemency.
How did what you went through shape who you are as a black man today?
Frederick Douglass is one of my heroes and he’d frequently say that freedom begins with a book. But his ability to say that and the power of him saying that came from having been enslaved and being saved by what a book offers. Prison was a cauldron for me. I weighed 120 pounds and was incarcerated in a state without friends or family. In learning to love myself in those dire straits, I had to learn to care about the men around me. We were all discarded, often because of the crimes we’d committed, but also, often, because we were young black men. To believe that you matter in a situation like that is to believe that you matter anywhere, under any circumstances. And to love yourself there, and have that love come partly out of what you’d learn from books, is to know that freedom begins with the turning of pages.
How did what you went through shape who you are as a father today?
My oldest son is 17. I was already in prison for two years by the time I was the age he is now. Everything I know about life was shaped by my time inside. And yet, everything I understand about life was shaped by being 27 and having a baby boy to figure out the world for. I often say I met my fathers and grandfathers in prison because prison was the first place I talked to a 30, 40, 50, or 60 year old man. Going through that meant that I knew this wouldn’t be the case for either of my sons. They know me, I know them. And they get to know all of me, not just the parts that glisten for the world. They’ve seen me struggle and weep because I’ve learned, through them and with them, that fatherhood is not a lie – but the willingness to go on a journey with your loves.
Who is Reginald Dwayne Betts as a father?
I show up for people. I have learned to weep in a world that rarely forgives weakness and falsely believes that weeping is for the week. I believe in the wonderment of it all. I’ve been blessed. I run an organization with a yearly budget of more than 5 million dollars. My team has more than a half a dozen men who went to prison as teenagers. I wake up every day knowing I invented something that didn’t exist until I named it and that my sons love me.
What does legacy mean to you?
Legacy is what you leave in your wake. But it’s what you leave in your wake every day, not just when you die. And for me, I believe legacy is represented in how the stranger on the street corner remembers you. I walk a lot. And so some of the people who live on the street recognize my face. To me, legacy is what you mean to those that others would ignore.
Describe the first time you told your son about your past and what that felt like?
It was devastating. Prison is not a place that you go to as a reward for something you did. It’s not a consequence of racism. And as much as I sometimes want to believe that, with each time I’ve had to talk about prison with my sons, it’s been obvious that the issue is complex but that no matter how complex it is, my incarceration began with my violence.
What advice would you give to incarcerated fathers who are navigating fatherhood once they’re back in the real world?
Your children need to hear from you, whether it’s a letter or a phone call. And if they aren’t listening today, all the letters you write will matter when they begin to listen. As hard as it is to commit to believing this, we all must believe that being there matters and that the sound of our voice, the words we write on paper, are being there. So read a book with your children, chop it up with them about your life and theirs.
What has your relationship with your son taught you about who you are as a man?
I have two teenage sons. Micah and Miles have taught me that it’s okay for a man to reveal his sorrows to his sons, within measure. That being unflappable does not mean being stone. That showing up does not mean pretending that you don’t hurt. The last two years, I’ve discovered things about me that I’ve never known – from learning I have ADHD, to just realizing what it means to be profoundly depressed at times and dealing with confronting that weeping is not weakness. And these lessons I’ve learned, I’ve learned with them by my side, sometimes hugging me as I’m weeping, sometimes learning to accept that part of being a man is remembering what it means to carry your own water. But maybe what my relationship with them has taught me is less about being a man and more about who I am. Coming out of this tough time, I know and they know I got them. I spent my whole life without being able to say that about my father. That my sons know this is a fact as real as gravity buoys my soul.
Tell people what’s next for you, how they can follow you, etc?
I’m the Founder and CEO of Freedom Reads. We build libraries in prison and we’re on the verge of opening our 500th Freedom Library. We have nearly 20,000 more to go. So that’s what’s next. And all the while, I’ll be representing what it means to be a good father. A present father.
