Jason Reynolds (JR) and Michael Clines (MC)

JR: My mom, she’s definitely my angel. Yeah, I have fond memories of being a child and the first thing she told me to say was ’I can do anything’. I had to say it every night before I go to bed. You know, whether I said, you know, the Lord’s Prayer, all that. It wasn’t of as importance. You know, she’d much rather than me just say, you know, I can do anything. She drilled that into my head really early in life. So when I was going through my my confusing years of high school and I was ripping and running and I was cutting up and I kind of fool, I think she always knew he’ll come back. And so looking back on it, it’s like, ’Wow’, I may have been one of the luckiest guys to have a mother who was so open minded. She never told me to hold it in my words, she never- if I had a problem with something, she’d say ’express it’. You know, never, never mute yourself. 

MC: After StoryCorps, do you have an idea of where you want to go next? 

JR: I want to be a writer. And that’s my ultimate goal, man. I want to shock the world. That’s my ultimate goal. But in order for that to happen, I got to live. 

MC: And through StoryCorps, this is a way of, you know, seeing the life. 

JR: Constant inspiration. I really believe that every person walking this earth has a story. Everybody has a story that could change the outlook of life for somebody else.