June 2025 Newsletter

Freedom Reads: Hope, Faith & Curiosity

Freedom Reads team members standing in front of Freedom Library(Photo: Illinois Department of Corrections)

Founder's Take

Once, I wrote that I met my fathers again. It’s the kind of thing that feels particular to men of my age, who grew up in the wake of the crack epidemic. Some say war on drugs, and I understand this - but it was crack cocaine that left the fathers of my youth’s eyes vacant, from a high of money or the ache of not having it. Inside, I met so many of us, barely older than me or much older, lost inside prisons from all the attendant ways that accumulating weight left us lost: murder, robbery, drug dealing. And inside, when we were sober, no longer fighting over blocks, turning to whatever gave us hope, sometimes, I swear, we saw more possible in each other than Galileo saw in the night sky.
 
This Father’s Day, Freedom Reads returned Inside. Not on the day, but all the days around it - so much so we braved missed flights and weather to get Inside and to make it home to our families on that sacred day. Every day, it felt we might miss something. But we always show up in the face of all the things we could have missed. I’m twenty years removed from standing for count and some days still feel my better days lost to a cell. The days when I jumped as if gravity was a nuisance, or at least watched others do the same. My team this June has visited prisons in Connecticut, Ohio, Puerto Rico. We have spoken to each other in English and Spanish and heartbreak. Because part of returning to a prison is always heartbreak. This is why we build Freedom Libraries. 
 
Justin Torres’s Blackouts is one of the books we brought Inside. A book about two men in an asylum. One aging and dying, one much younger, both gay, both sharing the memories of their lives. I worked with Justin and his editor and Farrar, Straus and Giroux to blackout the clinical nudity in the images that accompany the text because sometimes ensuring a book finds its reader is more important than what anyone might say of censorship. And it’s not a book about prison, except it is. Because prison is never just, if at all, about bars. In Blackouts, these men who know each other, learn each other better as they share stories of their lives, as the younger man cares for the older. I was once in the cell with a 62-year old Black man whose arthritis and diabetes kept him from putting the cheap lotion we had on his back to soothe the cracks that came from all that ailed him. I once rubbed lotion on his back because he asked me. Because I did not know my grandfather’s name then and so made him my grandfather, even if I never told him. 
 
We ask you to be a part of this story. Of literature, of freedom, of fatherhood. We know of the daughters who lost themselves chasing their father’s shadow, of the mothers who learned the ambidexterity of navigating a world that demanded they play the roles of father, mother, and everything else. And we know that when we go Inside, our impact is measured with the same hard tools once used to measure Galileo’s discoveries - hope, faith, curiosity.
 
Every donation helps us keep going in this world where showing up for others too often feels rare — and still, necessary. Because sometimes, freedom is a hand on a back, saying: At least today, at least in this moment, at least right now, I am here to say you are not alone.

Reginald Dwayne Betts
Freedom Reads Founder & CEO

20 Freedom Libraries Opened in Ohio Prisons

Freedom Reads Library Production Associate James Flynn at a Freedom Library opening in Southeastern Correctional Institution.  

The Freedom Reads team visited Ohio this June to open 20 Freedom Libraries across Ohio Reformatory for Women and Southeastern Correctional Institution. The team also brought the Inside Literary Prize to both prisons. 

To date, Freedom Reads has opened 498 Freedom Libraries across 50 adult and youth prisons in 13 states!

Closing out the 2025 Inside Literary Prize tour

Inside Literary Prize judges and members of the Freedom Reads team at Central California Women's Facility.

In June, the Freedom Reads team brought the Inside Literary Prize to seven prisons across Puerto Rico, Connecticut, and Ohio. In addition to lively discussions of the four shortlisted books, acclaimed authors Lemon Anderson and Caits Meissner joined the tour for readings, Q&As, and book signings for audiences inside the prisons.

This June, Freedom Reads Founder & CEO Reginald Dwayne Betts also sat down with last year's Inside Literary Prize winner, author Imani Perry, at the 92nd Street Y for a conversation about the role of poetry in our lives — and how equitable access to books can transform the lives of the incarcerated.

Stay tuned — the winner of the second annual Inside Literary Prize will be announced July 11th!

Meet The Team: Library Production Associate Michael Byrd

Freedom Reads Library Production Associate,
Michael Byrd, speaking in front of a Freedom Library.

When Michael Byrd had just come home after spending 17 years in prison he didn’t even have an ID. Then he was introduced to the team at Freedom Reads through a reentry program called Emerge. In January 2024, he joined the team as a Library Production Assistant assembling and building bookcases, “and going into prisons to open Freedom Libraries.” But that was just the beginning. 

“My new task at Freedom Reads is visuals and sound,” Michael says. “I’m learning from Tyler, [the Chief of the Library Division]. I never worked with furniture before Freedom Reads. I never worked with visuals either. Everything is new to me.”

What Do You Think?

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How a Voice, a Shirt, and Some Sushi Might Just Change Everything

Freedom Reads team members standing in front of Freedom Library(Photo: Illinois Department of Corrections)

You never know who you’ll meet over sushi. The other day, I was grabbing a bite at Iron Chef in Wallingford—a solid little Asian spot I go to now and then. I had on my Freedom Reads shirt, just repping the work we do, and I ended up having this conversation that’s still sticking with me.I was talking with someone at the table, and this woman across the way turns and says, “I know that voice… NPR, right? Freedom Reads?” I smiled and said, “Yeah, that’s me.” We got to talking—turns out her husband’s retired now, but spent his life in publishing and loves books. She said if we were ever looking for a volunteer, he’d probably jump at the chance.Now, I’ve had a lot of conversations like that where nothing really comes of it. But this one? Her husband actually showed up. He came by to see what we’re about, and who knows—maybe something good will come of it. Maybe something big.Sometimes all it takes is a shirt, a voice someone remembers, and the right moment.


By James Flynn, Library Production Associate at Freedom Reads

Freedom Reads in the Media

This June, Connecticut Public Radio spoke with the Freedom Reads team about returning to the prisons where they served time with handcrafted Freedom Libraries and great literature. And, WOSU covered the Freedom Library openings and Inside Literary Prize tour in Ohio. 

Plus, Freedom Reads Founder & CEO Reginald Dwayne Betts spoke about Juneteenth and the second annual Inside Literary Prize on Spectrum News NY1.

Why This Work Matters

Each newsletter we aim to share at least one letter (or excerpt) from one of Freedom Reads now 37,000-plus Freedom Library patrons. Freedom Reads receives many letters from the Inside. They mean so much to us. And we respond to each and every one of them.

I am a resident at Ohio Reformatory for Women (ORW) in Marysville, Ohio. Today your organization delivered the handmade bookshelves and Freedom Reads library to our unit, and hosted the event with artist Caits Meissner as she spoke about "The Sentences that Create Us."

The Freedom Library is an overwhelming gift. I've only had time so far to go in and breathe the amazing oiled wood smell and new book smell. What a blessing to our unit! I've seen some old "friends" from as far back as high school and look forward to meeting new "friends." Thank you for bringing humanity here....


Kat, 
Freedom Library Patron at Ohio Reformatory for Women

Our work isn’t possible without your support. Thank you for supporting us in our vision to open a Freedom Library in every cellblock in every prison in America.