"If you are going to have successful reentry," McNear says in his raspy voice, "you have to have someone welcoming you into the community, not just a program."
McNear, 59, has stood where these men stand. In another life, the South Philadelphia pastor and community leader was a lost-eyed, tattered heroin addict many had given up on.
Although a small step, the graduation at the Philadelphia County jail is considered special. The warden insisted it be held in the gym, with catered food, a colorful cake, and family and friends, who sit on one side of the room in metal folding chairs, smiling stoically.
The men will be released over the coming months. The graduation ceremony on this day symbolizes achievement in a life riddled with bad choices, and a resolve to stay out of prison.
Leaning over in a chair, John Scarbrough, 24, with a tattoo on his neck that reads "One Man Army," flips through index cards, going over his talking points. With his mother and 11-year-old sister looking on, Scarbrough, one of six inmates who will speak, will share his journey and how he lost a leg over drug money.
A former basketball star of Strawberry Mansion High, he made his way to college but hardheadedly quit after a fight with his coach over playing time.
Back home in Hunting Park, "I just went full throttle," selling drugs in the streets, making stacks of money, doing stints in jail. One night, two men opened fire on him while he sat in a parked car. Scarbrough ran, then fell to the ground, shot seven times, his legs on fire. "I had on a platinum chain and a cross," he remembers, "and I just prayed on it."
When he takes the stage, he'll walk with a limp, a metal pole where his leg used to be.
