The Master Plan: My Journey from Life in Prison to a Life of Purpose

320 Pages·2016·9.1 MB·English

by  Chris Wilson

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
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Copyright © 2019 by Master Plan Productions LLC
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Wilson, Chris, author. | Witter, Bret, author.
Title: The master plan : my journey from life in prison to a life of purpose / Chris Wilson ; with Bret Witter.
Description: New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018041588| ISBN 9780735215580 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780735215603 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH:
Wilson, Chris. | Criminals—Rehabilitation—United States—Biography. | Businessmen—United States—Biography. |
Self-realization. | Conduct of life.
Classification: LCC HV6248.W4987 A3 2019 | DDC 338/.04092 [B] —dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018041588
Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our
readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.
Version_1
To my mom
Author’s Note
AT THE REQUEST of my publisher and legal counsel, some names, places, and
dates in this book have been changed to protect the people involved and those
still hurting over events described here. I know, for them, this telling will be
hard, and I am sincerely sorry for that pain, but I believe that as long as people
are dying in our streets, stories like this need to be told. Please respect the
privacy of those affected. Thank you.
At some point between my sentence reduction and my release, I lost the paper
copies I had made over the years of my Master Plan. I now have only the last
version, which I wrote for my judge and which is pictured in this book. I had
stored the list on a floppy disk, which I kept in my cell, but every time I updated
it I saved over the previous version, so those older versions are lost. I re-created
the older versions of the Master Plan in this book by starting with this most
recent version and making an educated guess at when items were added.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note
Foreword by Wes Moore
Epigraph
PROLOGUE
One Shot
November 6, 2006
PART 1
The Cave
Division Avenue
My Mona Lisa Mom
The Cop
Broken
Gladiator School
The House Becomes the Cave
Six Shots
PART 2
The Middle Passage
Upper Marlboro
Solitary
Patuxent
Bammas
What’s the Point?
Decisions
PART 3
The Master Plan
Giving Water
What’s Your Endgame?
My Master Plan
Workout
Book Crusher
Positive Delusions
Tooky
Master Plan
Tier Three
Steve’s Story
Mentor
IAC
Progress
Family
Master Plan
Showstack
Business
Ethics
The Rosetta Stone
Master Plan
Perseverance
Victims
Opportunity
Remorse
Tier Four
Darico
One Shot
The Dream
Master Plan
PART 4
The Middle Passage, Part 2
Lucky
The System
The Man in the Cave
Saying Good-bye
Halfway
Grinding Again
Crying All My Tears
Revenge
Home
PART 5
From Plan to Action
Get Out of Prison
Remain Out in Society
Become Financially Independent
Start a Business
Remain a Lifelong Learner
Figure Out How to Afford to Be a Lifelong Learner
Focus on Continual Self-Improvement
Start My Own Business That Makes a Difference in People’s Lives
A Stoop Story
Positive Delusion
A Blessing
Be an Active Member of My Community
Make (Another) Difference in People’s Lives
The Uprising
Burning the Boats
Be a Father
The White House
Open Arms
EPILOGUE
Moving Forward
April 8, 2017
Recommended Reading
32 Things to Remember When Following Your Master Plan
A Note on Statistics
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Foreword
I FIRST MET Chris Wilson five years ago when a mutual friend and prominent
local philanthropist convened a small group of local leaders to discuss
Baltimore’s future. The framing of the evening invited us “to envision Baltimore
in 2033” in the hope that we might generate a handful of new solutions to some
of Baltimore’s deepest challenges. Over wine and good food, we considered the
future of the city in the context of its declining population. We debated the
obstacles to every child enjoying a quality education no matter where they attend
school. We ruminated on the difficult fact that roughly 50 percent of Baltimore’s
adult population does not work, and together, we started to explore ways we
might reverse that trend.
It was on this last point of conversation that Chris Wilson emerged. Soft-
spoken and impeccably dressed in a crisp white dress shirt adorned with a royal
purple tie, Chris described the plight of black men across the city. He
highlighted the fact that half of Baltimore’s black men are under some form of
correctional control (i.e., in prison, paroled, or on probation). He conveyed, on a
visceral level, the heavy stigma that burdens those caught up in the criminal
justice system. By virtue of their conviction, our brothers and sisters cannot vote;
employers, time and again, refuse to hire them upon their return home after
completing a simple background check. Chris spoke of the pain that too many
feel when they return home from prison: despite having served their time and
paid their debt, recently returned men and women cannot move forward from
their crime or their previous lives behind bars because of discriminatory barriers
and attitudes perpetuated across society. Chris painted a clear, compelling, and
ultimately urgent portrait of a large swath of the black community: generations