A second chance is granted

On Friday 26th August 1960, 16-year-old, Barry White was sitting in a holding room with fellow juveniles waiting to be sentenced for their crimes. He had never been so frightened in his life and wondered what was in store for him. He was certain he was going to jail for at least a year. Worse still, he was up in front of a Judge who had a history of handing out tough sentences. The same Judge had previously sentenced his brother Darryl to jail time and knew he was dealing with his older sibling.

But something seemed to touch the Judge that day. Maybe he just saw something redeemable in young Barry. The Judge studied Barry’s school record and was surprised at what he found – that the boy’s school history was excellent. The Judge laid into him for eight minutes and gave him a serious lecture on how he was wasting his young life and destroying his future before it had even started. Barry White knew that every word uttered by the Judge was true and he was genuinely ashamed of himself. At the end of it, he heard the magic word ‘probation’, then the Judge leaned over and whispered in his ear: “I’m going to let you go home, boy.”

Nearly 40 years later Barry White recalled the big smile on his face as he walked out of Juvenile Hall and heard the gates slam behind him: “I came to grips with owning up to my mistakes and made up my mind to never hand my freedom over to anyone else again in my life. It was a new day and a new ball game. In fact it was a whole new song. I was going to change everything.”