Almost two dozens juveniles sat inside the gymnasium at the Dallas County Jail Monday to hear Congresswoman Terri Sewell speak to them about their choices and their futures.

The boys, ages 12 to 18, were from the Dallas County Juvenile Detention Center and the Perry Varner Education and Treatment Facility.

“You have to decide what you want to be. You have to define yourself for yourself because the world will define you as a whole bunch of stuff,” Sewell told the juveniles. “If a little black girl from Selma can walk among kings and future presidents and future first ladies, you can too,” Sewell said. “When you look in the mirror, you have to see yourself for who you want to be, not who you necessarily are. Your circumstances today do not define who you are. If you remember nothing else I say, I hope you remember that.”

Sewell spoke to them about growing up and making good grades but always getting in trouble for talking too much.

“I was a good student, but I got bad conduct grades because I liked to talk,” she said. “I decided that my best skill was talking. So I went off and became a lawyer. Now I get paid to talk.”

Marcus Hannah, director of the Dallas County Juvenile Detention Center and the Perry Varner Education and Treatment Facility, said the center tries to instill in the young men that there’s another way.

“Our goal is always trying to put positive things around them, showing them that there’s another way in society,” Hannah said. “We try to enlighten them and put them in another light where they can see more positive things rather than seeing all the negative things that they do see in the community.”

Hannah said promoting positivity and encouraging the boys is important for their future and the future of the community.

“They see so many negative things in life, that when they do see the positive things it gives them a glimpse of light to where they say, that could be me,” Hannah said.