Williams survived the bullet, but he would wind up in prison. There, the state directly assumed the role of father-substitute, of ultimate, tyrannical authority, dominating and humiliating. And it was there, at his lowest point, ‘treated worse than an animal’ (221), so full of prison-administered pharmaceuticals that he was ‘reduced to marionette status’ (226), that Williams began to identify interlocking systems of domination as the ultimate cause of his anger. He began to realize that using his anger to fuel his own tyranny would be self-destructive. The first step was to discipline himself, this time not motivated by his passions but rather in order to form his passions. He continued weight-lifting, but now as part of a regime of practices he imposed on himself for physical and mental health, including fasting and praying. Once he had worked on self-discipline, he sets about learning other disciplines so that he can use them for his own purposes. He set about systematically improving his vocabulary so that he could use language to express himself, and he learned to draw so that he could use art to express himself. He set about learning the legal system to better defend himself in court. And he set about learning from religious and political systems circulating in prison – from Christianity to Afrocentrism, from Islam to socialism – not to choose one to embrace but to find practices from each useful for him.

Altogether, Williams gave himself a ‘godlike power to create’, but now, ‘redeemed’, this power was used for justice rather than tyranny (245). He was not redeemed in a flash, or by following a voice from the heavens, or by reading a particular book. On his account, redemption came through practice, through imposing regimes on himself and so keeping his self-interest in check. In this way, through something like spiritual disciplines, Williams reports, ‘I discovered the means to control my ego, which enabled me to reunite with God; to reclaim my humanity; to discover inner peace; and to find my raison d’etre’ (xix).

A prison fire caused Williams to realize that he could not just stand with incarcerated Crips. All those incarcerated were in the same boat (though not all those in prison; Williams’ sense of solidarity did not extend to guards). At the same time Williams was disciplining himself, he was analyzing systems of domination in the world and how they were connected. He discovered the reach of white supremacy, how it had concealed Black and African history from him and his peers, how it had destroyed his sense of self-worth. Education and introspection were among Williams’s new disciplining practices, and these led to an increasingly sharp critical sensibility.

Here, finally, as physical discipline and intellectual critique came into unity, Williams became a redeemed man; he came to ‘develop a conscience’ (301). Even then, however, redemption was incomplete. He was on the correct path now, but not at the destination. Williams describes the motivating force of his new life simply: ‘Faith in God’ (325). This is not a passive faith, but rather it requires action: ‘I fight for the poor and wretched’ (336).

Put another way, Williams learned how to become a man. He realizes that before, on the street, it was a ‘Machiavellian mentality that served for years as my apologia for manhood’ (269). Now, his manhood could be fulfilled as his body and mind sharpened, his emotions in harmony with his reason. Whereas before, ‘fatherhood scared me’ (321), and he convinced his partners not to list him on his two children’s birth certificates as the father, now he relished the experience of fatherhood. In the final, climactic pages of his autobiography, Williams describes a jailhouse reunion with his son, Stan. ‘His resemblance to me was striking. It was like looking in a mirror’ (327). Stan had followed his father into gangster life, trying to imitate his father. Williams tells Stan that he was not worthy of imitation because he did not have the courage to be a father to his sons – but now he had learned how to live rightly and to love rightly. As they parted, ‘almost as one, we spoke two words: “Perfect love!”’ (329). Williams reports finally feeling redeemed. Just as, with the Crips, Williams would spread his rule beyond himself and his circle of intimates, redeemed, Williams wrote a series of children’s books to spread his new rule, or rather, his new understanding of the spiritual disciplines. ‘I continue trying to set a noble example for my sons and others. My faith and discipline are the pillars of my resolve’ (324).

Williams had sons who loved him: he had become the man he always wanted to be but thought he could never be. For Williams reports that the start of his troubles, at the end of elementary school, was when he had a medical problem that required a radical circumcision causing excruciating physical and psychic pain. From that point on, he no longer had a vision of his future, no sense that dreams he once harbored could be achieved. Life was reduced to mechanically doing what was done. Sensual desire brought with it horrendous pain. With his injured member, he could hardly engage in the world, let alone be a man – and certainly not a father. It does not take an overzealous Freudian to read Williams’s life story, then, as consisting of attempts to realize his compromised manhood, first by combatting apparent tyrannies around him with his own tyrannical rule, then by a regime of self-discipline and fatherly love.