The Freedom Reader

Conan talks to Reginald from New Haven Connecticut about a past mistake that led him to a life of enrichment, education, and eventually the founding of FreedomReads.org, a non-profit that transforms the experience of incarceration by opening libraries in cellblocks. You can support Freedom Reads here. Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: teamcoco.com/apply

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Conan O'Brien?

  Who do you shop for first on the holidays, Sona? Was it, do you shop for the kids or do you shop for Tac?

• 0:06Speaker 01

  My kids.

• 0:07Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Or Oki.

• 0:08Conan O'Brien?

  You gotta get them your stuff.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Or my dog.

• 0:09Conan O'Brien?

  And then your husband is last. Well, guess what? It's that time of year. You feel that, you smell that cinnamon cider in the air? Do you smell that?

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:19Conan O'Brien?

  And you see pumpkins around, people buying turkeys. A little early to buy a turkey. Doesn't matter. Holidays? I would say it's just around the corner, but that's a cliche. It's very nearby in the cupboard. Well, guess what? Amazon delivers joy with low prices on the gifts you want even this early in the season. So get ahead of the season. Shop early gifts, top picks, holiday decor, and advent calendars at low prices. Get ahead, start on holiday gifting with Amazon's low prices. Shop now at amazon.com/holiday.

• 0:55Conan O'Brien?

  Owning a car or home comes with responsibilities. Sure, it's fun, but sometimes it makes you wonder why you ever longed for adulthood in the first place. I do that all the time. I'm like, oh, these bills, these bills. What am I gonna do?

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07Conan O'Brien?

  You know, when you own a house, you gotta fix it yourself. Sona, you see this to be true, right?

• 1:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, your garage door breaks and you're like, well, I have to fix it.

• 1:15Conan O'Brien?

  Probably at first you said, hey, I'll get the super to fix it. It's your house, dude.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  It's mine, dude.

• 1:19Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Liberty Mutual customizes your car and home insurance to save you money. In fact, they work overtime to tailor your insurance policy around what you actually need. The only thing they can't do is get that liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty jingle out of your head.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Liberty, liberty, liberty.

• 1:33Conan O'Brien?

  It's in my head all the time.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Start your quote at libertymutual.com.

• 1:42Speaker 02

  Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Wanna talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com/callconan. Okay, let's get started.

• 1:52Conan O'Brien?

  Hey Reginald, welcome to Conan of Brian Needs a Fan.

• 1:55Speaker 03

  Hey, how's it going?

• 1:56Conan O'Brien?

  Hey Reginald, how are you?

• 1:57Speaker 03

  I'm delightful, man. I'm doing, I'm doing great, honestly, yeah.

• 2:00Conan O'Brien?

  Um, I have been reading your, your bio, your story, your Marvel origin story, uh, Reginald, and it's fascinating. It's amazing.

• 2:13Speaker 03

  Thank you. I, I, it doesn't rival yours. I mean, yours is amazing. Mine is just, I'm, I'm just trying to make it out here.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  No, yours is better.

• 2:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I'm sorry, Reginald. Reginald, I love to, I love to toot my own horn, but no, you had me beat by a country mile. Um, you just have an amazing story. You have a law degree from Yale Law School and, uh, which, uh, is insanely impressive. And, um, you have an MFA in poetry. And here's what's, those are incredibly impressive accomplishments. And then you add to it that when you were 16, you participated in a carjacking and went to prison for eight and a half years?

• 2:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was not as impressive. I think that was the bane of my existence, but I think you live and learn. And, and for me, you know, picking up a gun was the most crazy volatile, violent thing I've ever done in my life.

• 3:12Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  And, um, and nobody tells you that you could do something at 16 that'll change your life forever. You know, as many teachers that used to sell me, you know, I, I would end up in jail, or I could end up in there, because I went, I lived in a bad neighborhood, so to speak.

• 3:26Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 3:27Speaker 03

  Um, I didn't even really understand that I could change my life forever. And, and I did, I changed my life forever. So that's the kind of devastating thing about it is recognizing that I changed my life forever.

• 3:39Conan O'Brien?

  Well, there's so much to, people like to say, unpack here. There's so much to talk about. Um, you, as far as I know, you spent a lot of time in solitary when you were in, in prison? And while you're in solitary, you discovered books. Is that correct?

• 4:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I did. I did two years off and on a solitary, but the thing that's really remarkable is, I'm eighteen years old, seventeen years old, I'm in a hole, and they took all of your books from me. And the thing is, twenty-four hours in a cell with just four walls, not as beautifully decorated as the walls around me.

• 4:20Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 4:22Conan O'Brien?

  I'm gonna say, that's some impressive artwork around here.

• 4:27Speaker 03

  And I was unraveling, and I heard a guy call out for a book, and I realized that these dudes had created an underground library for themselves. And all you had to do was call out for a book and they would send you one. And so I said, hey, yo, send me a book. And they sent me this anthology called The Black Poets. And that introduced me to Robert Hayden, Lucille Clifton, Sonia Sanchez, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Etheridge Knight. And I'm reading these words and I realized that these poets were able to capture an entire life in fourteen lines.

• 4:59Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 4:59Speaker 03

  And I remember buying two books. This is the first books I bought with my money. It was a Sonia Sanchez book called Under a Soprano Sky, and it was Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

• 5:09Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 5:09Speaker 03

  Now, I was, I was, I was trying to survive prison. I was five-five and a hundred and twenty pounds.

• 5:15Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, my God.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  Of those two books, I read Sonia Sanchez's book a hundred times. And I never really, I never finished reading The Art of War.

• 5:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 5:24Speaker 03

  Um, because I, I learned the real way to survive prison ended up being love. It ended up being the exact antithesis of what had got most of us in prison. Because I think the antithesis of love is violence. And so it was Sonia Sanchez's Under Soprano Sky that became a part of the pathway of me learning to love myself. But also in learning to love myself, me learning to understand that we had did horrendous things to land ourselves in prison, but that, that we could be more than those things. And, and I've spent my entire life since then trying to prove that to be true.

• 6:01Conan O'Brien?

  I'm curious, um, had you been at all interested or intrigued by books or even the idea of getting around to books before you went to prison?

• 6:13Speaker 03

  You know, the last book that I read, um, so my, my local library said, uh, Mr. Benz, we understand you're still in prison, but we need you to return this book that you checked out. And it was the Evelyn Woods, but, but you wouldn't believe what book it was. It was the Evelyn Woods Guide to Speed Reading. See, I've always been obsessed with infomercials, right? And they would have those infomercials on how to speed read.

• 6:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  And I was just like, my mom, my mom wouldn't let me buy. She didn't believe that this guy could read, you know, a thousand words a minute. When he was flipping the pages, my mom said, he's just flipping the pages.

• 6:50Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 6:50Speaker 03

  I said, no, he's reading. Listen to this. And so I went to the library and I found that Evelyn Woods book and I checked it out. And I still remember the tips that was in it. So I've always been fascinated with reading. I've always wanted to be a reader. My mom refused to, to let anybody tell me that hardback books came out first.

• 7:08Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  So that she could keep giving me the old paperback books of like books I hadn't read yet, as if they were new. She would be like, Walter Moses' new book just came out. Book came out three years ago, you know, but the paperback just came out. And so what prison did was like, honestly, the judge said to me, I'm under no illusion that sending you to prison will help, but you can get something out of it if you try to.

• 7:32Conan O'Brien?

  Right.

• 7:32Speaker 03

  And, and I never forgot what he told me. And I just had to lean into what I cared about. And I asked myself, what will you be when you leave prison? I mean, you sixteen now, what are you gonna train yourself to be while in here?

• 7:44Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  And I told myself I would be a writer because the only thing that I could name myself as loving in that way outside of my mom was books. And I needed to love something that I believe might save me. And so I decided to lean into the love of books.

• 7:59Conan O'Brien?

  That's a, I mean, it's, it's kind of stunning to me that you wouldn't encourage people to read who are incarcerated. And, um, you know,

• 8:13Conan O'Brien?

  Supposedly, the concept behind the penal system is for people to better themselves and reform and grow. And so I'm amazed that books are denied to people in solitary. And that's a new concept to me, because I would think you want people to read, you want people to build their minds. And the fact that you had to kind of do it secretly is kind of surprising to me.

• 8:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you know, to the credit of the Department of Corrections around this country, I think that they've improved and changed a lot.

• 8:50Conan O'Brien?

  Yep.

• 8:51Speaker 03

  My biggest supporters are the Department of Corrections. Our first Freedom Library was in Angola. One A and one B Angola in MCI Norfolk where Malcolm X did his time. And you got to understand that there's work that we've done, opening 600 libraries across the country, prisons in 14, 15 states, about 50 different prisons. That doesn't happen without the Department of Corrections and the senior leadership in the Department of Corrections and the line CEOs, CEOs, all saying, we believe in books, we believe in literature. And we, I mean, we bring 100 pound bookcases and put them in sale blocks that have never

• 9:33Speaker 03

  had anything but plastic and metal and steel. We bring 500 brand new books into the lives of people, many of whom have never seen a brand new book, have never smelled a brand new book. I mean, you know, it's about work that I do, but with all due respect, it's like the most humbling, you know, awe inspiring thing I've been a part of. Because to be a part of it is to literally watch how an invention that dates back hundreds of years, the Gutenberg printing press, actually is still the conduit for people to have access to the world. If we first imagine a printing press, we get them access to.

• 10:11Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:13Speaker 03

  It's cool.

• 10:13Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I mean, it's beyond cool. I want to make sure I stress this. You get out of prison, you go to Yale Law School, and you have founded something called Freedom Reads. It's an organization that gives incarcerated people access to books. And you guys have, as you said, opened somewhere around 500 libraries across about 45 prisons in 14 states. And this is going to have an enormous impact. I'm sure it already has. But I do think that exposing people to books and giving them the chance to better themselves and

• 10:53Conan O'Brien?

  find actually the love, it's not like eating your spinach, the love of books and the possibilities opened by books. That's a massive thing that you've done. It's huge. I know you're a humble person, but it's incredible. You had this great misfortune when you were 16 years old, and you've, you know, you've, you've, this is a massive contribution you've made. I cannot tell you how impressed I am by what you've done.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  I appreciate that. And I, you know, I, we have seven, eight people, a workforce out of our team of 22, served time in prison, anywhere from 18 months to 30 years. And, and for each of us, you know, books played a profound role in us reshaping our lives. And so I love the fact that I feel like it's, remember, I got a bald head, but you remember, um, I'm not just a client, I'm not just a president, I'm a client, you know?

• 11:51Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, the hair club, the hair club for men. Si Spurling, Si Spurling would end his commercials. It was a, it was a spray, I think, that you could put on your bald spot. And he would say, I'm not just a satisfied, you know, I'm not just the president, I'm a client. And then he would reveal.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. This is like, I feel like I just, I carry books around with me everywhere. To be like, we, I just don't talk about this. I got a book in my bag, you know? We tell people that we hate books because, um, books are the talisman that would have kept us safe when we chose to pick up pistols. Books were the talisman that would have kept us safe instead of the pistols that caused more harm.

• 12:29Conan O'Brien?

  The um, did you know when you were getting out of, did you have a plan? When your sentence is coming to an end, did you have a, a clear goal then? I am going to get this higher education. Or was it something that unfolded gradually after you got out?

• 12:49Speaker 03

  Nah, I mean, I, I was just talking to somebody a few minutes ago about ADHD. And one of the real blessings in my life is that I have horrible ADHD, which means I've never had a plan in my life. And the reality is you go to prison at 16. If, if you're a person that operates on a plan, you might have a hard time. I, I have literally never had a plan. I've kind of just moved through this world with a, a, a hope and a desire to be better than I was when I committed that crime. And a curiosity and an openness. And so, you know, I, I ended up in law school because I was struggling to get jobs that would support me. And I ended up representing friends of mine and I got five people out of, out of prison that I did time with. Because once I went to law school, they were like, well, Dwayne, you're a lawyer. Can you, can you help with my case?

• 13:35Speaker 03

  I started Freedom Reads because a, a friend and a supporter who also works for the Mellon Foundation had asked me, what would I do for people in prison if money wasn't an issue? And I said, we put millions of people in prison. I will put a million books in prison. And she said, how? And I said, one library at a time. And with that phrase, I started making up Freedom Reads. I started making up, the organization has had a profound change in my life. This is the first job that I've had since 2006. Because I've essentially been a student and an independent writer and, and performer, you know, from 2006 until now. And, and now I run an organization with a multimillion dollar budget, 20 people that work under me.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  I mean, it's been amazing, but I would be lying to you if I pretended like this was a part of a plan. I think the only plan I've had was trust.

• 14:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, that's well said, yeah. I mean, that, but that's true of. That's true of a lot of people. I know it's true in my case. I can't say I had a plan. I just kind of followed my passion and it was always news to me. Like, I didn't know where it was gonna lead. I didn't know where I was gonna go. I'm sure I took a lot of missteps along the way, but you, you know. I think that's a good message to get out there, is that it's not people saying, "Okay, this is exactly what I'm gonna do and here are the steps." There's a jazz quality to it, where you're just playing what you feel.

• 15:09Conan O'Brien?

  And if you trust and you're leading with that kind of positive energy and you marry it to a work ethic, things happen. And you're proof of that. It's amazing. Absolutely amazing.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 15:28Conan O'Brien?

  You know, winning an award, that's a big achievement, right?

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love awards.

• 15:31Conan O'Brien?

  Every now and then in life, maybe something nice like that comes your way. Winning them consistently is almost impossible. It just doesn't happen, you know? Well, guess what? Winning five times in six years? You know what that sounds like to me? Sustained excellence.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 15:46Conan O'Brien?

  Hyundai has done just that, earning the title of America's best SUV brand for 2026 from U.S. News and World Report. You are a very happy Hyundai driver.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  I drive a Hyundai Palisade and I love my car. I love it. I love driving it around.

• 15:59Conan O'Brien?

  I've been tooling around in an Ioniq 5N, which I love. Beautiful car. Well, listen, whether you need an SUV for everyday life, your next big adventure, or extra room for family and friends, Hyundai has an option for you. The Tucson Hybrid is loaded with technology and built for everyday life. The Santa Fe Hybrid's fully capable and ready for adventure. The Palisade, that's yours, right?

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Hello!

• 16:19Conan O'Brien?

  They're gonna rename that the Sona. The Palisade Hybrid, yeah, delivers premium capability and class-leading interior space. With available, I have this memorized, H-Track all-wheel drive, up to an EPA-estimated 619 miles of range on vehicles like the Palisade Hybrid and Hyundai's industry-leading warranty. It's easy to see why Hyundai continues to deliver the quality, innovation, technology, and value drivers expect from an award-winning brand. View U.S. News Best Cars at cars.usnews.com and call 562-314-4603 for complete details.

• 16:53Conan O'Brien?

  Did you know that one in four Americans targeted by scams end up falling for them?

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:58Conan O'Brien?

  You fell for it.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  I fell for a scam?

• 17:00Conan O'Brien?

  Now, you didn't lose too much money, but you did lose.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  I did lose, and it was very inconvenient, and now they put protections on my account like I'm, uh, dumb.

• 17:08Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I don't know where they got that impression.

• 17:12Conan O'Brien?

  Criminals are now using AI to make scams look more realistic than ever. In 2025, AI fraud spiked 1,210% and cost Americans $893 million. That's incredible. Well, with AI, it can get so smart now.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:29Conan O'Brien?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Maybe I should start scamming.

• 17:31Conan O'Brien?

  No, that's not the point.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Oh, no, that's not the point of this.

• 17:33Conan O'Brien?

  That's not the point.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  It's so much money.

• 17:34Conan O'Brien?

  One accidental click, Sona, can expose your information, putting you at risk of identity theft. Luckily, this is the point. Not that you should start scamming, but that everyone should get LifeLock.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Right, right, right, right.

• 17:45Conan O'Brien?

  LifeLock has live, US-based restoration specialists who will be with you every step of the way to fix your identity theft from first alert to full restoration. This is fantastic. How do you not have this?

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:57Conan O'Brien?

  If you have expenses or money stolen due to identity theft, you're backed by the million-dollar protection package with up to $3 million coverage in some plans. Join now and save up to 30% off your first year. Go to lifelock.com/conan. That's lifelock.com/conan to save 30%. Terms apply.

• 18:15Conan O'Brien?

  Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype?

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, like all the time.

• 18:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I did that with an all-potato restaurant.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 18:27Conan O'Brien?

  Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, like impressions, but then they don't see revenue. You know what I'm talking about, don't you, Sona?

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, all the time.

• 18:37Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, LinkedIn has a word for that: bullspend.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Bullspend.

• 18:40Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, instead, you can get the highest ROAS of major ad networks with LinkedIn ads.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:45Conan O'Brien?

  Cut the bullspend. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 and get a $250 credit. Go to linkedin.com/conan. Terms apply.

• 19:00Conan O'Brien?

  So what are some of the things in life that really get you down?

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Uh, driving?

• 19:03Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  That's the first thing that popped in my head.

• 19:06Conan O'Brien?

  No, but I've seen you drive and it's true. I'm always picking mailboxes out of your grill.

• 19:11Conan O'Brien?

  You're a creative driver. Uh, look, let's face it. Just living on earth can be a lot, right?

• 19:16Speaker 01

  It can.

• 19:17Conan O'Brien?

  I mean, oy vey, it's a lot.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:19Conan O'Brien?

  There's gravity, there's mosquitoes, there's this... You know that they say the sun is going to, at some point, go supernova and incinerate the earth, probably in five billion years?

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:28Conan O'Brien?

  But watch your diet, we might be sticking around for that.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 19:31Conan O'Brien?

  So cosmically speaking, you've earned a break.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:34Conan O'Brien?

  And you know where this is going? I think you do.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  No.

• 19:36Conan O'Brien?

  Pluto TV.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Oh, right, of course.

• 19:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, to escape all of these hassles in life, you gotta get Pluto TV. Turn off all your earthly problems and turn on the movies and shows you already love. You've seen them, but you want to see them again. They're old friends.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:49Conan O'Brien?

  Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Dirty Dancing, Alias, X-Files. Pluto TV is completely free.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 19:55Conan O'Brien?

  These streamers, all these things cost so much money these days. And I won't mention that when I do an ad for them, but...

• 20:02Conan O'Brien?

  No subscription, no fees, zero dollars. And as any mathematician will tell you, zero is one of the most profound numbers ever conceived. I was thinking about that this morning.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Wow, that's profound.

• 20:11Conan O'Brien?

  I really wasn't. The best thing on TV are free. Escape to Pluto TV, stream now, pay never.

• 20:23Conan O'Brien?

  You talk about the smell of new books. I've been kicked out of bookstores because I just go and smell them.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 20:30Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, and, yeah.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Like you open them and smell them?

• 20:34Conan O'Brien?

  I open them and I...

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Or you're just standing by the bookshelf sniffing the books?

• 20:37Conan O'Brien?

  No, I open them and I smell them.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 20:40Conan O'Brien?

  And, um, I guess it's, it's a perversion.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Are people holding them?

• 20:46Speaker 03

  Only if you don't buy the books, though. As long, as long, if you buy a couple of the books, the people at the bookstore, they'd be delighted, you know? You just gotta buy...

• 20:53Conan O'Brien?

  No, I'm...

• 20:54Speaker 03

  You just gotta buy two or three.

• 20:55Conan O'Brien?

  You know, I'm gonna tell you something, Reginald. I'm a, uh, I'm a sniffin' runner.

• 21:02Conan O'Brien?

  I get a good, deep sniff. And then I run. And I'm wearing a raincoat when I do it.

• 21:10Speaker 04

  The sniff and sprint.

• 21:11Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah, sniff and sprint. I'm the, yeah, and there's my pictures up in a lot of bookstores around the country.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  They'd be like, yo, they'd be like, who was in the, who was in the section with the books, with, with the Reader's Digest?

• 21:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  You know, from the early 20th century. Oh, that's Conan's favorite section.

• 21:29Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, Conan's. Have you seen this man?

• 21:35Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, it's 100 degrees out and it's a sunny day. Why are you wearing a raincoat? That's my business. Uh, look, Reginald, I'm a creep and you knew that when you contacted us. So this is on, this is all on you. But I also think that, you know, a lot of us have bad, make bad mistakes when we're around 16 years old. We don't have, I wouldn't have had access to, um, any, you know, I wouldn't have known where to get a gun or, but, so there's a, you know, I, I, there's a quality to some of it, which is like, yeah, mistakes. Usually people make mistakes, bad mistakes, when they're in those teenage years.

• 22:20Conan O'Brien?

  That's when they do it. And then, um, you know, I'm very aware that I was incredibly fortunate to be in a situation where,

• 22:30Conan O'Brien?

  my bad impulses couldn't get much worse because I'm living in a, in a very stable kind of environment. Do you know what I mean? And I wouldn't have known where to get a gun, frankly. And I used to ask people, how do I get a gun? You know, I did.

• 22:44Speaker 03

  Why? My, my, my son's. Yeah. Because, you know, makes you cool. Somebody asked me once. And I say, yes, I had no idea.

• 22:52Conan O'Brien?

  Reginald, I'm gonna disagree with you.

• 22:55Conan O'Brien?

  Me with a gun does not look cool.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  I don't think it would do that for you.

• 22:59Conan O'Brien?

  No. I look like a frightened old woman who found a gun. Just wondering where to return it.

• 23:06Speaker 03

  The crazy thing about it, though, is I deeply believe that. So like, even as a kid, I've really had no access to guns.

• 23:13Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  I could pretend that I did, but I didn't. And then this one day I did. But I think about my son's life, and they have never seen a fight before. You know, and so some of it, I think about how radically different the life that I've been able to provide for my sons have been because they haven't seen the kind of violence that my childhood was steeped in. Even if I didn't grow up in a worse neighborhood, I didn't grow up in a worse neighborhood, but I got beat up more, I got beat up, you know, at least 15 times. How many fingers do we have? Fingers and toes, I was, you know? I spent my childhood on the ropes, you know what I mean? They used to call me Glass Joe. That's, that's a joke. See, Cody got me trying to be a comedian now because this is the first time that I've been around somebody truly funny.

• 23:53Conan O'Brien?

  But wait, so where did you grow up? Where, where, where did you grow up?

• 23:58Speaker 03

  Right outside, right outside of DC in PG County, Maryland.

• 24:01Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, okay, so.

• 24:03Speaker 03

  Which had the benefit of like the nation's capital and you could see everything. And my mom had a great government job, but it also had the poverty in the sense of being a black belt. And being like, like right outside of the center of everything, but literally right outside of the center of it. I was the first person in my family to go to college and the first person to graduate from prison.

• 24:23Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  And that's not supposed to be a potential reality of somebody growing up in, in, in the eighties and the nineties. That's not supposed to be the landscape of, of what it means to, you know, be an American citizen, but, but it literally was my, my perspective.

• 24:41Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. What do you, what do you credit? Because there have been many people, obviously, that have been in your situation and not had this spectacular turnaround. Who do you credit or what do you credit? This ability to turn this massive negative into a positive and to, as you sort of say, pursue love and understanding and acceptance. Where did that come from?

• 25:13Speaker 03

  I'mma go ahead and credit my mom, and I'mma credit my mom for two reasons. Uh, first, uh, you know, on the front end, she forgave me.

• 25:23Conan O'Brien?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  And, and I didn't, she didn't make me beat myself up. She just accepted that I was better than that, and she had to accept it on, on faith. You know, she had to really believe that I was better than the crime that I committed.

• 25:35Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 25:35Speaker 03

  And convey that to me in such a way that I could believe that I was better. And so I credit my mom, and then she put money behind her belief. I took a paralegal course in prison, she paid for it, you know, I was buying those books in prison, she sent me the money for it. So I'll credit that, and, and I will also credit, you know, like, every time somebody was honest with me.

• 25:55Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  The judge was honest with me, he told me, I'm at a no illusion that sending you to prison will help. But you can get something out of it, and it was, it was a challenge, as, as well as just being a state. That like, you sixteen and everybody else is gonna tell you how little power you have, how small you are, how violent prison is. I'mma tell you, you can get something out of it if you want. And I think that I've always had this attitude, once I went to prison, and felt like I was, I had sink to rock bottom. That I could be who I say I am. And, and I have just sort of committed myself and dedicated myself in a singular way to doing that. And, and then I also say the last thing is that, because I spent so much time in prison, I was able to become an autodidact.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  I was able to pursue and chase my interests.

• 26:42Conan O'Brien?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  And I was able to learn a lot about things that I thought were completely unrelated, until they became related.

• 26:49Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 26:49Speaker 03

  Like, who would have known me maneuvering around the Department of Corrections, and around COs, and around wardens, would be the skill set that I needed twenty years later, when I'm starting an organization that demands that I not look at COs and wardens as my enemies.

• 27:05Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:05Speaker 03

  You know, I had to choose in prison that they weren't my enemy, and that's why it's easy for me to do it now. I had to choose in prison that I had a story that needed to be bigger than me being a felon, so that the COs had to have a story that was bigger than them being a CO. And so it was all of these small things that actually built a, a set of skills that, that, you know, people trusted me to deploy in a way that matters, but. Honestly, I'm just here for the ride and I could say that I wouldn't have guessed any of this when I was 16. I wouldn't even have guessed that I would survive prison.

• 27:38Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  Uh, but I don't think I would trade anything for the journey.

• 27:42Conan O'Brien?

  Well, Reginald, you're an incredibly inspiring person, a really impressive person. Uh, honored to get to talk to you, seriously. And um, you're doing something that's huge, really is huge. Very few people can say they've had this kind of impact uh, that you're gonna have on all these lives. And so I'm, you know, could not be happier to talk to you. And if you have a question for me, sometimes people call and they have a question. You may not have a question for me, you know?

• 28:14Speaker 03

  I do. I got one. And I'll tell you, I, I wrote you myself, like 2 o'clock in the morning. You know, when I was like, man, I would love to be on this show. And, and I, and I mean, and it, it is one of those things though. It was like, yo, somebody will read this. And out of everything that I've done, I really jumped out the window like that. But 2 o'clock in the morning, I sent that email out. And the question I have now is, we all say books change our lives, but we, we live different reading lives. I wonder what book changed your life or what book you really remember from your twenties?

• 28:46Conan O'Brien?

  Wow, uh, I remember there's this book, I think I've mentioned it before by a writer named Shara, called The Killer Angels, and it's about the, the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg. And it's written, um, it's, it's a fiction. It's written like fiction, historical fiction, but it's very beautifully written. And I read this book and I just became obsessed with it. And I had already been a fan of history, but I read this book and I've gone back and read it many times since. And it's just kind of a beautiful, very accurate account of not only what happened,

• 29:31Conan O'Brien?

  but the kinds of personalities that were involved. And it just brought what could have been a really dry historical account to life. And I realize you can do that with anything. Do you know what I mean? Any, any story can be told in a very dry, boring way. Or if you've got a really talented writer and storyteller, they can tell it in an amazing way. And that book was really powerful for me, really powerful.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  See, see, look, I would tell you, you won't even believe this. This is such a great question. That's such a great answer. My son's birthday is the Gettysburg, is the date of the Gettysburg Address.

• 30:08Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, wow.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  That is my oldest son's birthday, November 19th.

• 30:12Conan O'Brien?

  Well, get the Killer Angels. Get the Killer Angels. You're gonna read it. It's, it's just a great book. And, and if it was just fiction and wasn't about real, how the battle really unfolded. It's just filled with amazing characters. It's so well done. I think Sharad died shortly after he wrote it. He died young, but it's just fantastic.

• 30:37Speaker 03

  It's going in the library.

• 30:39Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 03

  I'm putting it in the Freedom Library. From now on, it's gonna be in the Freedom Library. This is a great new address.

• 30:44Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, let me ask you a question. How do people, how do people donate? Is there a way that people can donate to this cause?

• 30:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, they should go to the website, Freedom Reads, F R E E D O M R E A D S.

• 30:58Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, okay.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  Dot O R G. And they could donate right at the website.

• 31:02Conan O'Brien?

  I think that, I mean, I know I'm gonna wanna make a donation. And I'm gonna make David make a donation.

• 31:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, of course, with your credit card.

• 31:11Conan O'Brien?

  With my credit card. But no, I, I love what you're doing. I love your message. I love your energy, your positivity, your sweetness. I mean, you know, we, you're one of those people. I get despairing sometimes about all the stuff that's happening in the world. And then I meet someone like you and I think, I think we're gonna be all right. So, but then I go back to drinking. And book sniffing.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  God.

• 31:41Conan O'Brien?

  I'm leaving this interview right now and I'm gonna...

• 31:44Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  You're ending it on book sniffing?

• 31:46Conan O'Brien?

  I'm gonna go, I'm gonna end it so I can get to... There's a bookstore just down the street. I'm gonna put on my, put on my, put on my bathrobe and go rushing in there.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  You're book sniffing.

• 31:58Conan O'Brien?

  My book sniffing robe, yeah.

• 32:01Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, Reginald.

• 32:02Speaker 03

  We're gonna start asking, "What book have you smelled lately?"

• 32:10Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I don't want to go into that. Let's just say it was about Churchill. That's all you need to know.

• 32:17Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, Reginald, be well, keep doing what you're doing. I hope we get to meet in person someday because I'd be honored to shake your hand, really.

• 32:25Speaker 03

  I will be honored to meet you in person. Thank you so much. And everybody else, man, the whole team has been lovely from the first interview...

• 32:31Conan O'Brien?

  Oh, cool.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  ...to now. It's been amazing.

• 32:34Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I gotta let them all go today, but...

• 32:38Conan O'Brien?

  Getting some AI in here to replace them. All right, take care, Reginald.

• 32:42Speaker 03

  Bye.

• 32:42Conan O'Brien?

  Bye.

• 32:43Speaker 03

  Take care, guys.

• 32:45Speaker 05

  Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and Nick Liao. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy.

• 33:02Speaker 05

  Supervising producer, Aaron Blair. Associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples. Associate producers, Sean Dougherty and Lisa Berman. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at siriusxm.com/conan. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan wherever fine podcasts are down.

• 33:31Speaker 05

  Hey, that's me, Teddy Swims. You hear that? That's life. So go grab it. Grab your old friends, grab new friends, grab a White Claw. Grab flavor for everyone in your crew. Grab music, laughter, and moments you'll never forget. You'll never regret it. Oh, hey, man. Grab new friends, grab old friends, grab life by the glow. White Claw. Please drink responsibly. White Claw Celta Works, Chicago, Illinois.

• 34:02Conan O'Brien?

  When you hear Alka-Seltzer, you probably think heartburn, right?

• 34:05Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 34:05Conan O'Brien?

  Well, did you know Alka-Seltzer has a line of cold and flu medications known as Alka-Seltzer Cold?

• 34:11Speaker 04

  Ooh.

• 34:12Conan O'Brien?

  Did you know that, David?

• 34:13Speaker 04

  No, but I feel like we need it.

• 34:14Conan O'Brien?

  Why didn't you know that, David?

• 34:15Speaker 04

  I know, you expect me to know everything.

• 34:17Conan O'Brien?

  I knew this.

• 34:18Speaker 04

  Did you?

• 34:18Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, I've tried it, it's really good. And I like that fizzy, fizzy, fizzy when you drop the Alka-Seltzer Cold into the water.

• 34:24Speaker 04

  You do, yeah.

• 34:25Conan O'Brien?

  Alka-Seltzer Cold: Fast Dissolves Tablets Are Designed to Deliver Cold and Flu Relief Fast. Just drop the two tablets in water and hear those bubbles bursting into action. Ready to work faster than pills. Bubbles faster than pills. Pills take time to dissolve, not bubbles. Next time a cold or flu strikes, quick! Alka-Seltzer Cold: Nothing Works Faster for Cold and Flu Symptom Relief. Among Oral Products: Use as Directed.