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Tavis: Judge Glenda Hatchett, better known to TV viewers as Judge Hatchett, is a former chief presiding judge of the Georgia juvenile court, and a former high-ranking executive at Delta airlines. She is also the author of the book 'Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say!,' now out in paperback. Her syndicated TV series is now in its seventh season. Does it seem like seven years now?

Judge Glenda Hatchett: It does not.

Tavis: Wow.

Hatchett: It does not.

Tavis: Congratulations on seven seasons.

Hatchett: Thank you.

Tavis: That's a long - it's like a lifetime.

Hatchett: That's a lifetime.

Tavis: In television.

Hatchett: A couple of lifetimes.

Tavis: In television, for a Black woman, no less. It's a long time. (Laugh)

Hatchett: I tell you, I'm blessed, Tavis, I'm blessed. There's no other way to explain that.

Tavis: How did this happen for you, for those who don't know the story? Because you really were a judge, unlike a lot of folk who we see playing judges.

Hatchett: Right, right, no. I seriously was. And what happened is that people think I left that job to come to television. That's not what happened. I had two sons that I needed to figure out how to send to college, so I was going to go back into corporate America, which is where I came before I went to the bench. And long story short, Sony came to me and said, 'We want you to do this pilot.'

And I said, 'No, I don't wanna do what I see on television.' They then said, 'What would it take?' And I said, 'I'd have to create it consistent with what I believe in.? So that's where we pushed the envelope. We do interventions. We take kids out on the streets. We really ask the hard questions with families and children, and I really am very proud of a lot of the work that we've been able to do.

Does it work every time? No. This is real life, it's not scripted. I don't see these people in advance. But I give it my best shot, and my goal is for people to leave in better shape than they came in.

Tavis: I assume, though, Glenda, that if it doesn't work every time, and nothing in life does, but I assume it must work relatively well. One, because again, you're on seven seasons. But number two, my own personal story, you called me one day and asked me to do an intervention.

Hatchett: And you were so wonderful to do that.

Tavis: And I came on your - and I swear to you, everywhere I go, to this day, (laugh) people still say to me, 'I saw you on Judge Hatchett.' I got a talk show; I got my own show every night. And they tell me, 'I saw you on Judge Hatchett.' And I still, over the years now, I've kept in touch. And he's kept in touch with me. With this young guy, this young kid whose name I won't call, but we established a relationship. His mother and the three of us, we communicate. So I (unintelligible)...

Hatchett: Well, I am grateful, 'cause you didn't have to do that, Tavis. You could have said, "Glenda, girl, I'm busy. Love you, but I can't do this." But you stopped what you were doing, and you reached out to him in a way that changed his life forever. And that's what I wanna use the power of television to do, Tavis. I wanna use it not only to affect that young boy, but what about the people who are watching? As you know in the work that you've done for years, that if we take this responsibility on, then we have to treat it as a privilege.

Tavis: There's no shortage of work that needs to be done. But after being around for seven years in a daytime format, do you ever feel like been there, done that? You ever feel like you wanna - it's a great opportunity to have. But do you feel like you're covering the same territory, and that the challenges are getting more complex?

Hatchett: The challenges are complex. But the question is, what's the alternative? So I think all right, so I go home, I don't do this anymore. Am I really being responsible? Every day, day in and day out, if I can hit that bench really with hope, then I continue to do it. That's the way I did it in Atlanta. Every day, day in and day out, if I could hit that bench with a sense of hopefulness, I don't care how bad it was, Tavis. If I can feel like I can make a difference today, then I would stick it out.

And it does, it gets overwhelming at times. You see a kid that you've worked hard with, only to find out that he's now in prison. And you go,"What in the world happened? Where did he go wrong?" But then you know that there's a kid who stopped you in the grocery store and said, "Judge, I am the first person in my family to go to college. I am going to college because you made me believe that I could do it." So it makes it worth it.

Tavis: You may have just answered the question. Do you think - I don't mean to cast aspersion on daytime television. But I wonder whether or not you think that giving hope, that inspiring people with courage, is too much to ask of daytime television, given that what you do is crowded by so much mess in daytime TV?

Hatchett: Oh, no question. And people told me, Tavis, that I would never survive past the first season. They said people don't wanna see this; people don't wanna be given this sense of hope. People don't give a good..., about these kids getting on the right track. And I said, 'If that is the case, then I'll go home.' Because my life is not built around being on TV every day.

What you see on TV every day is what I did in my own courtroom for eight and a half years. This is what I believe, this is my passion. But seven years bears out the fact that people really want to see hope. And they wanna see resolution. If I had my druthers, frankly, I would do a different kind of show. I would do a show where I didn't have the barrier of the bench. Where I could get my hands on these young people and their families.

Tavis: You don't mean on their necks?

Hatchett: Well. (Laugh)

Tavis: If I can get my hands on that Negro, I -yeah, yeah.

Hatchett: 'Cause you know, that's where I be coming from. The little old ladies at church call my Mama up, they've given up. They call up, "Clemmie, girl, Glenda was on, (laugh) cussing folk out today. She said she was gonna come off the bench and (unintelligible)." And my mother says, "Glenda hasn't changed."

Tavis: That's Glenda.

Hatchett: She's not gonna change for TV. That's who she is. But I do it out of love.

Tavis: You talk about this in this book, which I enjoyed reading when it came out in hardback, and now it's in paperback, 'Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say!: Saving Your Child from a Troubled World.' I know you've been asked this a thousand times, but I ask it now in the context of months ago, this 'New York Times' cover story that ran that finally clued everybody in to the fact that we've known for a long time, that Black boys are in trouble.

Hatchett: In trouble.

Tavis: So here's the cover of "The New York Times' and everybody on TV, and everybody in media's talking about the trouble that Black men are in.

Hatchett: Yeah, we've known for a long time.

Tavis: We've known, and you've done the work on the front lines. What's wrong with our system of jurisprudence where Black men are concerned?

Hatchett: Well, I'll tell you. Too often, the kids have such a heavy burden before they even get to the court system. Too many of our children, if you go back and look statistically, too many of our Black boys are in Special Ed. Disproportionately in Special Ed. Too many of them have been suspended, expelled. And so if you are out on the street every day, Tavis, with nothing to do and no parameters, and nobody's setting these goals, then they are more likely to end up in front of judges like me.

The question becomes then when they finally get to me, what am I gonna do to try to keep them out of the system? Because I believe, and with my heart, and that's why I work so hard at this, that if I can get my hands on him at 13, we won't see him in prison at 23, 33, 43. But we have got to figure out how we put a foundation particularly under our boys in preschool.

We gotta get them prepared so that they are focused. We've gotta raise the signs of attention deficit. Not just medicate them to the point where they aren't functioning. But how do we get them, and how do we channel that energy so they aren't getting expelled, and they aren't being disruptive? And we have gotta have people who are watching. We've gotta have watchful eyes on this generation of young boys in a way that when we were growing up, Son, how you doing?

And I tell this story in the book. Son, how you doing? And an old man said to me, "Judge, the problem is that there aren't enough people calling these boys son now." Not even in their own homes. And if we can't get it right in the household, then we've gotta put some foundation under them in after-school programs, in ways that keep them engaged in positive things. Otherwise, we're gonna lose them.

Tavis: What gives you hope? To your point, it's not just that Sony or somebody is smart enough to offer you a job after seven years, but that you are passionate about this work. And I assume, not unlike most folk who I know who are passionate about what they do, they do it because they are hopeful. They do it because there's reason to believe that the work they're doing is or can have some impact. The numbers oftentimes don't bear out the hope that you...

Hatchett: That is true.

Tavis: ...express through the work that you do. So why does Glenda Hatchett remain hopeful?

Hatchett: Well, because the question is, if I go home and decide after seven years, eight years first on the bench and now seven years of what I'm doing, go home? Why don't I just go home? If I go home, I know what the answers are. But I have got to stand accountable at the end of my life. I wanna be able to look back, Tavis, and say honestly, I did what I could, when I could, where I could.

And although the stats don't bear it out, if there is a young boy or a young girl that I can get back on track, then I've made a wonderful head start on their children's children's children in ways that will live beyond me, and I believe that.

Tavis: Let me close with a completely trivial matter. I've known you for a long time -so don't even send me your mail. Glenda and I have known each other too many years for that; I don't wanna hear it. (Laugh) That said, are you, like, the flyest judge on TV, or what? The outfits you wear, the ruffled shirts, the color, the shoes, you see this? (Laugh) I'm like, can judges be that fly on TV?

Hatchett: Oh, yeah. You know what? I don't sit in the black robe all day long, Tavis. 'Cause look, you know that lace collar? I didn't do that when I was in Atlanta; I'm not doing it on TV. That stuff is too heavy duty. I gotta have some fly stuff. (Laugh) Cute shoes. They say, 'Well, why do you have to have cute shoes? Nobody sees your shoes.' I said, 'I do. I see my shoes.'

Tavis: You gotta feel good sitting there.

Hatchett: Yeah.

Tavis: When she feels good, she looks good, and more importantly, she's doing good. In paperback, 'Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say!: Saving Your Child from a Troubled World.' Seven seasons now in daytime television with Judge Hatchett.

Hatchett: And I'm proud of you.

Tavis: I feel the same way about you.

Hatchett: I am so proud of you.

Tavis: Glad to have you here.

Hatchett: Thank you.

Tavis: That's our show for tonight. Catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles, thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.