When poet, lawyer, and MacArthur Fellow Dwayne Betts was imprisoned for nine years at the age of 16 for carjacking, he only wept twice. One of those times was when he read Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail." In this powerful conversation with EconTalk's Russ Roberts, Betts explains why he cried, what he learned from King, King's urgency in the face of injustice, and Betts's thoughts on writing the introduction to a new volume of King's letter.
Welcome to Econ talk conversations for the curious part of the Library of economics and Liberty.
I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
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Today is March 9, 2024.
My guest is poet, lawyer and author Duane Betts.
This is Duane's fourth appearance on Econ Talk.
He was last here in January of 2023, talking about beauty, prison and redaction.
He was a MacArthur fellow in 2021.
He is the founder of the Freedom Reads Project, which puts great books in prison.
We'll talk about that later, or maybe earlier.
Dwayne welcome back to Econ Talk.
You know, it's my absolute, absolute pleasure.
Our topic for today is Martin Luther King junior s letter from a Birmingham jail and your introduction to a new volume of King's work.
How did, how did this come about?
It's actually remarkable because in my life, all good things that I've gotten, and I swear this is true, have come when I tried to do something for others.
And so for the first time, the King family had okayed a collection of books, individual books to come out that were based on the speeches.
And the first book was I have a dream.