Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend The Freedom Reader
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Apr 9, 2026 A conversation about finding transformation through books while incarcerated. Stories of discovering an underground library and how poetry changed a life. The founding and growth of a nonprofit that brings new book-filled libraries into cellblocks. Reflections on rehabilitation, returning to law school, and building a team of formerly incarcerated leaders.
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How A Secret Prison Library Sparked A Life Change
- Reginald discovered an underground prison library while in solitary and that anthology The Black Poets transformed his thinking.
- He bought two books with his first money in prison: Sonia Sanchez's Under a Soprano Sky and Sun Tzu's The Art of War, rereading Sanchez repeatedly.
Love Not Violence Became The Survival Strategy
- Reading taught Reginald that surviving prison required love, not strategy, overturning his early belief in violence as survival.
- Sonia Sanchez's poetry helped him learn self-love and the possibility of being more than his past crime.
Physical Books Still Open Worlds In Prisons
- Freedom Reads partners with Departments of Corrections and places 100-pound bookcases and 500 brand-new books into cellblocks, changing environments that previously had only plastic and steel.
- This work shows physical books still open worlds for incarcerated people, invoking the legacy of the Gutenberg press.
