Celebrating Black History Month: Larry Roberts Jr.'s barber instruction program guides young men toward a better life
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A South Side barber is paving the way to keep young men out of the system – and into a better life.
CBS 2's Shardaa Gray talked with Larry Roberts Jr., owner of Larry's Barber Maximus, for this Black History Month profile. Gray also met one of the barbers Roberts employs – who is grateful for the opportunities Roberts has provided him.
Barber Kurtis Brown has been in and out of the system.
"I survived with my life. I'm thankful. I'm 35 years old. I'm supposed to be dead," Brown said. "My background was pretty much gangs and drugs. So that's how I came to meet Larry. I think the first time I met him - I must have been 19 - Division 6, inside the barbershop."
Roberts owns two barber shops, located inside the Walmart Supercenters at 8431 S. Stewart Ave. in the Chatham neighborhood, and 10900 S. Doty Ave. in the Pullman neighborhood.
Roberts also has seven barber colleges across the state - including three schools inside the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice and the Cook County Jail.
"They just want another opportunity to do something different, right?" Roberts said. "But if we don't give them the opportunity - and if all we do is talk about them, and badmouth them, and say they'll never be no good - then they're going to continue carjacking, playing their credit cards, robbing and stealing."
Roberts started the program in Cook County Jail in 2010 as a way to build a better community. That was where he met Brown – who 16 years ago was locked behind bars.
"At the time, he was speaking life into us. We just thought he was preaching and didn't pay him no attention," Brown said. "So it actually took me going into that same division like four or five times before it actually hit me."
Roberts opened his barber college in 2004. Since then, more than 2,000 students have graduated. Nearly 4,000 have attended, with a 52 percent graduation rate."
To make sure students leave Larry's Barber College without student loans from the $17,000 tuition, Roberts created the Data Foundation Incorporated - a nonprofit organization to help provide financial resources to students and correctional facility inmates.
Roberts says there is a stigma that cutting hair isn't a real job.
"We could be responsible for somebody's death sitting in our chair - literally sitting in a barbershop or a beauty shop," he said. "We have to learn about HIV, AIDS, malaria, hepatitis, electricity and light therapy, microbiology, folliculitis."
Roberts isn't just trying to teach his students how to cut hair.
"I'm trying to teach about paying taxes, having 401(k), having an exit plan, having something to retire to," he said.
Larry Roberts Jr. is someone you should know. You might remember that phrase more than a decade ago, when CBS 2's Harry Porterfield got an inside look of Roberts' jailhouse barber college.
Roberts says a lot has changed since then.
"From 2012 to now is - I've become more disciplined, I've become a better steward, and I understand what it means more to be able to make sure that I need to create an atmosphere and an environment where you help the people that help you," he said.
As for Brown, his next goal is to mentor the youth with clippers - like Roberts has done.
"If you change your way of thinking, your life will change," Brown said.
Roberts says other penal systems in other states, such as Florida, have reached out to him to expand his barbershops.
