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

In history, the Middle Passage refers to the trans-Atlantic voyage by which millions of enslaved African people were transported to the Western Hemisphere. The Master Plan is divided into five parts. Wilson entitles Part 2 “The Middle Passage,” and he entitles Part 4, “The Middle Passage, Part 2.” Aside from the fact that these are two of the book’s literal middle passages, Wilson uses the phrase to describe what is happening in his life during the periods covered by Parts 2 and 4: a metaphorical middle passage that transports him, first, to incarceration and later to Patuxent’s mental-health ward. Alluding to the historical Middle Passage indicates that these are not choices that Wilson makes for himself, but destinations determined for him by people in positions of greater power. 

In a modern American history course, taken while imprisoned at Patuxent, Wilson learns about redlining, the U.S. government’s practice of marking off certain poor communities as risky for investment. Through his introduction to Redlining, Wilson begins to understand that in many ways and many places “black poverty was planned” (171). This changes Wilson’s understanding of the Structural Oppression he experiences—both personally and on the community level—as intentional, rather than accidental.