We are pleased to announce that R. Dwayne Betts will join our 2019 UU-SJI conference as the Keynote Speaker for our 2019 Social Justice Initiative conference to be held October 18-20, 2019. His keynote is scheduled for 9:30 am on Saturday, October 19, 2019.
Dwayne’s background makes him particularly well suited to our SJI 2019 topic, Justice for all: Community Conversations on Crime and Imprisonment in the North Country. Betts’ memoir, A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison, describes his personal experience with the criminal justice system in Virginia where he was sentenced to prison for 9 years for his role in a carjacking.
After his release from prison, Dwayne Betts received an A.A. from Prince George’s Community College, a B.A. from the University of Maryland, and a M.F.A. from Warren Wilson College’s M.F.A. Program for Writers. He then earned a JD from Yale Law School in 2016. While in law school, he spent his summers with the American Civil Liberties Union and the District of Columbia’s Public Defender Service. In 2016-2017, he worked in the New Haven Public Defender’s Office. He iscurrently a PhD candidate at Yale, and serves as a law clerk for a federal judge. During the Obama administration, he was appointed to the Coordinating Council of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. He lives with his wife and two sons in New Haven, Connecticut.
In 2010, he was the recipient of the NAACP Image Award for non-fiction. He has also published two books of poetry. His latest collection of poems, Bastards of the Reagan Era, was named the winner of the Pen New England Poetry Prize.
Dwayne has been profiled on the PBS Newshour for his work with incarcerated juveniles. To learn more about him, check out the following links from the PBS Newshour:
Dwayne Betts reading one of his poems
Dwayne Betts and the programming at the Juvenile Facility in Chicago
We are very excited to have Dwayne join us for this important event and hope you will mark your calendar and be sure to join us. For more information, email us at sji@uucantonny.org