THE CHAZ WILLIAMS STORY A TALE OF AMERICA'S GREATEST LIVINGA TALE OF AMERICA'S GREATEST LIVING BANK ROBBER, TOLD IN THREE BANK ROBBER IN THREE PARTS 2 America loves its outlaws – so long as doesn’t love black outlaws. It fears them. they’re white. And what it fears, it locks away. Jesse James – the Robin Hood of the “I’m no marcher,” says Chaz. “You’re not Wild West. He robbed eight banks. And getting me to march down no street just technically, two of them were trains. to take an ass whipping. Now, you want me to run up with some guns, that’s a John Dillinger – the dapper gangster of different story. But I had to resist in my the Great Depression. Robbed 24 banks. own way. My disobedience was not civil.” Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow – folk Chaz Williams: How to Rob Banks is a heroes. Robbed 17. documentary event mini-series about race and racism in America. About Charles “Chaz” Williams robbed 63 the prison system. Oppression. Black country promised him freedom but about what’s happening in America right banks. I’ll say it again: Sixty-three. militancy. Shootouts. Jailbreaks. And denied him equality. now. bank robbery. Carried out by a man That makes him the greatest bank robber whose skill elevated the craft to an art It’s a story of the American dream, stolen It’s a story about a man who was in American history. Hands down. form. at gunpoint. Reparations, by any means sentenced to 95 years in prison, robbed necessary. banks while incarcerated, and then But if you’re white, chances are you’ve It’s about crime as a revolutionary convinced the very man who locked him never heard of the man. Because America act, committed by a young man whose It’s a story set in the 1970s. And it’s up to set him free. 3 How to Rob Banks will fuse narrative and an intimate, long-form setting – free documentary filmmaking techniques to from the constraints of a conventional merge the intimacy of the podcast with (adversarial) documentary film interview. the visceral storytelling of the feature From these wide-ranging and free-form film. interviews, we will weave an audio edit of the narrative. The series will be composed of four Chaz Williams himself. Essentially, we’ll of Chaz’s bank robberies – to evoke the primary elements: audio-only voiceover This edit will serve a two-fold purpose: blend the techniques of the dramatist poetry of the time and place in which the interviews from all cast members; on- providing the voiceover narration that Suzan Lori Parks with the “performance stories are set. camera performances of the signature drives the series and building the basis of self” shows pioneered by Spaulding stories by Chaz and his closest partners for the scripted scenes to be culled from Gray and later adopted by Mike Tyson. These four elements – audio interviews; in crime; carefully culled historic archival and based upon this material. scripted original photography; rehearsed materials; and feature-film style original Additionally, we’ll integrate carefully retellings; and curated archival – will photography. The scripted scenes will be composed curated archival materials – ranging then be braided into a singular, cutting- of two separate elements: kinetic narrative from footage of Deep South chain edge nonfiction narrative. The audio interviews with Chaz will scenes like that featured in the gangs, to photographs of lynchings, to be wholly collaborative in approach, presentation reel and rehearsed self-produced documentaries by black This is documentary film as co- conducted over a series of months in retellings of the signature stories by militants of the 1970s, to news coverage conspiracy. 4 BIRTH OF A BANK ROBBER The reality is one cannot want to be gangster. It’s not an occupation, like wanting to become a doctor, lawyer, or fireman. The mental and emotional hardness required of this life is not a choice that anyone would rationally make. Being a gangster is a natural state. You are born into it. SOUTH CAROLINA, 1963 – Born in black men in bondage, white overseers Harlem, Chaz Williams is growing up in on horseback, shotguns over the saddle. the “40 Projects” in Jamaica, Queens. This summer he’s on a father-son road His father was a tank gunner in World trip through the Deep South. Visiting War II. Fought his way through France grandma in Florida. for America. Now he and Chaz sleep in otherwise, ever drag him from the car powers that be had rigged the game, so the car in South Carolina. Motels won’t with intent to harm, Chaz should know I had two choices: follow their playbook, Chaz sees the signs: “White Only,” take their money. White state troopers to aim for center mass, double tap each lay down, and lose. Or make my own “Negro Only.” He sees the chain gangs: pull them over for bullshit, call his father target, and keep pulling the trigger until rules. “Nigger” and “Boy.” the gun clicks empty. Back in New York, Chaz started robbing. The old man keeps his Army .45 in the Chaz is 11 years old. The state branded him “unmanageable.” glove box. He takes Chaz out in the Sent him to a youth prison upstate. Chaz southern pines, teaches him to shoot The Deep South had a profound impact on broke out. Hit the road. it; tells Chaz that if white men, cops or my young psyche. The way I saw it, the 5 CLEVELAND, 1968 — Chaz is on the run They serve a little time in Canada. Get with his best friend and partner in crime, deported. Still a juvenile, Chaz revisits Greg Sewell 1 . They land in Cleveland. the upstate youth prison. One day he Fall in with the Black Nationalists of New jumps off a bus, outruns the guards. Libya. The militants are fresh off the Glenville Shootout. Four hours of gunfire Back on the road, he puts together his with Cleveland P.D. Fifteen people shot. first professional crew. Graduates to Three cops in the morgue. robbing banks. Finds his true passion. Living with the black nationalists, we It’s important to define what type of bank learned about self-defense, community, robber I was. I’m not a note passer, and and resistance. We studied Pan- I’m not a bank burglar. We did broad Africanism and The Art of War by Sun daylight, commando-style robberies, with Tzu. We learned tactics from combat clear objectives and escape options. We veterans. We then traveled from city knew every time we hit a bank it was a to city – taken in, taught, and accepted matter of life, liberty, and death. by the black revolutionary community wherever we went. We understood In 1970, Chaz was arrested for bank ourselves to be a special type of capitalist robbery and conspiracy. Tried, convicted, with revolutionary instincts. sentenced to 15 years in prison. Chaz and Sewell cross into Quebec. Hit Started doing time at the Federal a currency exchange at the Montreal Correctional Institute in Milan, Michigan. airport. Get busted at a shopping mall, trying to convert the foreign cash to That’s when his career as a bank robber dollars. Their descriptions were all over really took off. the radio. But they were unaware. The police bulletins were in French. 1Confirmed Supporting Cast Member 6 LITTLE EGYPT Every step of incarceration for me was another level of technical training. Federal prison was like finishing school for gangsters. Chaz was a skilled cellblock hustler. The documents revealed the program Money and information came his way. would launch in about two years. Like stolen documents outlining the criteria for a Bureau of Prisons pilot Chaz ran a long con. He looped in three program for “promising” inmates – young fellow black inmates, including Herb felons with model behavior, who were Bowman 2. He made sure they all hit taking college courses, demonstrating every item on the program checklist. And “rehabilitative potential.” when the time came, sure enough, they were all invited to be a part of a “new, Under this experimental initiative, a few exciting experiment.” such inmates at Milan FCI would receive unsupervised, full-day passes to study Exciting was right. at Washtenaw Community College and the University of Michigan, both in Ann Between classes, they robbed banks. Arbor, just 14 miles away. 2 Confirmed Supporting Cast Member 7 We beat the system with their own himself and his family. The charges were system. Despite our criminal records, dropped. we were automatically eliminated as suspects, because we were classified Chaz did the rest of his original bid. Got by law enforcement as “currently paroled. And went right back to robbing incarcerated.” The best alibi you can banks. have is to be in prison when the crime is committed. My skills had reached an all-time high. And now I had freedom of movement, Chaz and his crew rented apartments along with the privacy to train and drill in and around Ann Arbor, one for my crew so as to increase our proficiency hiding cash, one for stashing weapons, to near perfection. and one (a penthouse) for socializing – entertaining lady friends with Marvin Gaye and Al Green on the hi-fi. The plan was to open a nightclub in Detroit once they all got out. Little Egypt. Live soul music and fine soul food. A spot for people in the life. Hustlers with money. Then a prison bus driver dimed them out. Chaz and two others were charged with multiple counts of armed bank robbery.