Category Archives: ezwwaters

One Hundred Years of Black History

Posted on February 16, 2026 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

My father was born the same month Negro History Week was announced, timed to Lincoln’s February 12 and Douglass’s February 14 birthdays. Nearing his centennial, he embodied Black history: North Carolina segregation, a segregated WWII Army, then migration to New York. He rarely spoke of it, but history and literature helped me understand. Continue reading →

Posted in Black History Month, Black patriotism, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, ezwwaters, Family, Fatherhood, Fathers, Growing Up, Lest We Forget, Martin Luther King, race, raising black boys, Segregation, The Black Blood of Poetry | Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Associaiton for the Study of Negro Life, Bard College, Bicentennial, Black Arts Movement, Black History Month, Carter G. Woodson, Decisive Decade, Douglass, Fourth of July, Frederic, Kent State, Negro History Week, North Carolina, President Geral Ford, Samuel Yette, Segregation, The Ethics of Living Jim Crow, The Ethics of Living Jim Crow-An Autobiographical Sketch | Leave a comment

Blood at the Root: Then and Now

Posted on February 5, 2026 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

My first book, the award-winning epic poem, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass: Remembrance of Things Past and Present, deals with the theme(s) of “the captivity, exploitation and suffering of Black people in America.” But not all of … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, crime, ezwwaters, Lest We Forget, Murder | Tagged books, Equal Justice Initiative, Movies, radio, soundtrack, Strange Fruit, Whit Mob Lynches Thomas Brown on Courthouse Lawn in Nicholasville KY | Leave a comment

Revisiting _The Miseducation of the Negro_ This Black History Month

Posted on February 3, 2026 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Carter G. Woodson’s seminal book, The Miseducation of the Negro, published in 1926, is a book Black folk should periodically revisit, perhaps every three years, ideally every year. If you are Black and you have not read the book, then … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Education, ezwwaters, Lest We Forget, Politics, race, raising black boys, Slavery | Tagged 1619 Project, african-american, Aristotelian Logic, Aunt Jemima, Black history, Black History Month, Brown v. Board of Education, Candace Owens, Carter G. Woodson, Clarence Thomas, Classical Rhetoric, Compulsory Education Act (1852), culture, General Grammar, history, Jim Crow, Nicholas Capaldi, Plessy v. Ferguson, Russell Sage College, The Art of Deception: An Introduction to Critical Thinking, The Miseducation of the Negro, Tribium, U.S. Senator Tim Scott, Uncle Tom, writing | Leave a comment

Daddy Dearest

Posted on February 2, 2026 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

My father, a Native Southern Son, was born in the same month and year Negro History Week was established. Then, we were Negroes. Thirty-four years later, when I was born, we were still Negroes. When my father died at the … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, ezwwaters, Family, Fatherhood, Fathers, Lest We Forget, race, raising black boys, Relationships, Slavery | Tagged 1960s, Black Arts Era, Civil War, Confederacy, Decisive Decade, Emmett Till, Fourth of July, history, Jim Crow, NOrth Carolina Governor Michael Easley, politics, Richard Wright, Segregated South, Slavery, Southland, The Ethics of Living Jim Crow, Virginia, War of Northern Aggression, World War II | Leave a comment

For the Love of Poetry

Posted on January 13, 2026 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

I love poetry. It is only fitting that my fourth book of poetry, The Black Blood of Poetry, will be released this Valentine’s Day. Although this forthcoming selection, on its face, may not seem like “love poetry,” it is, because … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, ezwwaters, Growing Up, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Poetry, Politics, race, Revolution, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, Streets of Rage | Tagged 1960s, Countee Cullen, Decisive Decade, JFK, Malcolm X, MLK, RFK, The Black Blood of Poetry, William Blake, William Carlos Williams, William Shakespeare, Willliam Wordsworth | Leave a comment

Journey Through Crime, Justice & Literature, Part III

Posted on January 3, 2026 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Continued… (If you missed the second installment, then click here: Journey Through Crime, Justice & Literature, Part II) The modern War on Crime, as we know it, was inaugurated with Richard Nixon’s campaign for the presidency in 1968. Nixon declared … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, crime, ezwwaters, Justice Chronicles, Politics, race | Tagged Abel Meeropol, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Alexis de Tocqueville, Attica Correctional Facility, Attica Rebellion, Billie Holiday, cien anons de soledad, Class, De Profundis, Democracy in America, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Great Society, Gustave De Beaumont, Hudson Valley Black Press, hyperincarceration, Loic Wacquant, Medellin Cartel, Michelle Alexander, Nelson Rockefeller, News on a Kidnapping, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Oscar Wilde, prisonm-industrial complex, race, revanchist America, Reynold's Magazine, richard nixon, Strange Fruit, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, THe Four Zoas, The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, The House of the Dead, The New Jim Crow, The United States Penitentiary System and its Application in France, war on crime, War on Drugs, Watergate, William Blake | 2 Comments

Journey Through Crime, Justice & Literature, Part II

Posted on December 23, 2025 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

…Continued (If you missed the first installment, then click here: Journey Through Crime and Punishment, Part I.) Crime and Punishment was first published in The Russian Messenger, a literary journal, in twelve monthly installments in 1866. I reread passages of … Continue reading →

Posted in crime, ezwwaters, Justice Chronicles, juveniles, Murder, Parole, parole board, Politics, race, raising black boys, remorse | Tagged ABACADRABA! Or NOtes on the War on Crime, art, Cicero, Cicero's Murder Trials, crime and punishment, Dostoevsky, Endless Punishment is a crime, Felony MUrder and the Misdemeanor of Attempted Escape: A Legislative Error in Search of Correction, Fordham Urban Law Journal, Gary McGivern, Governor Mario Cuomo, Hamlet, HIcksville, Murder Trials, New York Times, Newsday, Notes from Underground, PEN, Peter J. McQuillan, photography, Poetry, Portia, The House of the Dead, The Merchant of Venice, The Russian Messenger, travel, writing | 1 Comment

Journey Through Crime, Justice & Literature

Posted on December 16, 2025 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

I first became interested in the story of crime and punishment, how we tell those stories, at 16 years of age. Then, three childhood friends were arrested for two homicides. Two were immediately arrested, one was on the run for … Continue reading →

Posted in crime, ezwwaters, Justice Chronicles, juveniles, Life Sentences, Murder, Reentry, Streets of Rage, Urban Impact | Tagged "Shakespeare and the Law" column, Alexander Dumas, CPL 440.10, crime, Crime & Punishment, DIck the Butcher, Dostoevsky, Edgar Allan Poe, Eyewitness News, felony=murder rule, Henry VI, history, Jack Cade Rebellion, Julius Caesar, Justice Frederick C. HIcks, Mark Anthony, murder, New York Law Journal, news, Nicholas Capaldi, Part 3, Raskolnikov, Russell Sage College, Sybil Hart Kooper, The Art of Deception, The Cask of Amontillado, The Count of Monte Cristo, THe Quadrivium, The Trivium, true-crime, writing | 5 Comments

How to Mentor Teens Effectively

Posted on November 8, 2025 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

When I worked in child welfare more than 20 years ago, my supervisor would assign to me what she thought of as the toughest “cases,” i.e., teenagers, and cases where the child ended up in the system because of an … Continue reading →

Posted in ezwwaters, juveniles | Tagged child welfare, Family, Mentor, mentoring, Odysseus, Telemachus, Ulysses, writing | Leave a comment

I Know Why the Caged Poet Sings

Posted on October 23, 2025 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Some of my favorite poets happen to be named William – William Shakespeare, William Blake, William Wordsworth, and William Carlos Williams. When I meet most people, I often ask them what their names mean or the backstory of their names. … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, crime, ezwwaters, Growing Up, Justice Chronicles, juveniles, NYPD, race, raising black boys, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, Streets of Rage, Urban Impact | Tagged Countee Cullen, fiction, George Washington, life, short-story, Thomas Jefferson, travel, William Blake, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Willliam Carlos Williams, writing, Yet Do I Marvel | Leave a comment

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