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I have been out of prison for just over two decades, and in that time I have gotten at least three honorary degrees. Not once have I had my sons or my mom or any of my closest friends come and listen to me address a class of graduates. Such a huge honor, one that I'm deeply grateful for, and one I realize now that I might not have believed I deserved. That's the strange thing about prison: it makes you question what you deserve. And yet there's also something profoundly beautiful about what men, women, and children create in prisons.

The 15th annual National Conference for Higher Education in Prison was held in Cleveland, OH this year - and I was there. I went to prison in January of 2000 and got out in July of 2025. In 2011, while Inside, I joined Wesleyan University’s Center for Prison Education Program (CPE) - I had been in college almost since the first NCHEP.

Sometime in the 1980s, a friend of mine had just been denied parole and was in need of an uplift. I thought of giving him a book to help take his mind elsewhere and chose Claude Brown’s Manchild in the Promised Land. I felt that reading Manchild following his denial would cut through the disappointment with something steadier and more defiant. Provide proof that despite missteps, life and growth continues even when it feels stalled.

Meet Ben Bruce, the Chief Financial Officer of Freedom Reads. On any given day, Ben is the steady hand behind the organization's financial operations, reviewing transactions, approving expense reports, closing the books each month, and steering longer-term projects like the annual budget and year-end audit. He describes his work as balancing a dual objective: advancing the organization's mission while staying true to sound financial policy and legal requirements.

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.