Category Archives: Martin Luther King

Journey Through Crime, Justice & Literature – The Series

Posted on February 17, 2026 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In this series, I trace how a teenage brush with homicide headlines became a lifelong interrogation of justice. From police tape and tabloid “if it bleeds, it leads” narratives to courtrooms, prisons, and the literature that wrestles with guilt, I ask what truth survives punishment. Along the way, I revisit forgotten voices, personal losses, and hard-earned lessons—seeking a language that honors victims, confronts systems, and insists on humanity, story at a time, without flinching. Continue reading →

Posted in being a teenager, Black History Month, Education, ezwwaters, Genealogy, Growing Up, Justice Chronicles, juveniles, Life Sentences, Martin Luther King, Murder, Parole, parole board, Politics, race, raising black boys, Reentry, remorse, Segregation, Slavery, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, Streets of Rage, The Black Blood of Poetry, urban decay, Urban Impact | Leave a comment

Journey Through Crime, Justice & Literature, Part IV

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

I began writing this fourth and “final” installment of “Journey Through Crime, Justice & Literature” on Martin Luther King Day. I re-read Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (16 April 1963), not for purposes of this series, but on this … Continue reading →

Posted in crime, ezwwaters, Growing Up, Justice Chronicles, Life Sentences, Martin Luther King, raising black boys, Slavery, Streets of Rage, urban decay, Urban Impact | Tagged 13th, 13th Amendment, 1863 Craft Riots, Alexis de Tocqueville, Ava DuVernay, Black Codes, Charles Hynes, Conviction Integrity Unit, Darryl Alston, De Profundis, Dostoevsky, EJI, Gustave de BHZeaumont, Hillary Clinton, hyperincarceration, Johnson Crime Commission, Jonathan fleming, Kenneth Thompson, LBJ, Letter from Birmingham Jail, Loic Wacquant, mass incarceeration, Michael G. Pass, Nuremberg, Oscar Wilde, Post-Reconstruction, prison industrial complex, Reconstruciton, Red Summer, richard nixon, Rosewood massacre, Sara Mayeux, school-to-prisoh pipeline, The House of the Dead, Tulsa Race Riot, war on crime, War on Drugs | Leave a comment

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

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

Exploring Book Bans: The Impact on Black Literature

Posted on February 3, 2025 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

On a recent summer trip to Virgina, where one could argue that it all began in 1619, that is, the enslavement of Africans in what would become the United States of America, I stopped at a Barnes & Noble. During … Continue reading →

Posted in Black History Month, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, ezwwaters, Lest We Forget, Martin Luther King, Politics, race, Religion, Slavery | Tagged 1619, 1619 Project, Alice Walker, Banned books, Barnes & Noble, Black Wall Street, Cesar Chavez, Florida, Kansas, Lorraine Hansberry, Martin Luther King Jr., Oklahoma, PEN America, Pennsylvania, Rosa Parks, Rosewood, Texas, The Birth of a Nation, The Clansman, The Fire Next Time, Thomas Dixon Jr., Through the Fire, Toni Morrison, Virginia | 1 Comment

Understanding MLK’s Legacy and America’s Complicated Past

Posted on January 19, 2025 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

The author’s political awakening began with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, marking a profound shift in societal consciousness and the end of the Civil Rights Era. Reflections on history reveal a complex narrative dominated by white perspectives, with 1968 identified as a pivotal and traumatic year for America’s identity. Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, ezwwaters, Growing Up, Lest We Forget, Martin Luther King, Politics, race, raising black boys, Relationships, Religion, Revolution, Streets of Rage | Tagged 1968, Black Power, Black Shadows and Through through the White Looking Glass, Civil Rights, Civil RIghts Era, history, MLK, MLK DSay, news, politics, RFK, richard nixon, The Choice: The Issue of Black Survival in America, The Great Society | 1 Comment

A Red Record Redux

Posted on May 30, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, in A Red Record (1895), about the bloody murders of Black people at the hands of white people, lists three “excuses” white people gave for the wholesale murder of Black people by whites. The excuses are: …the … Continue reading →

Posted in crime, ezwwaters, Lest We Forget, Martin Luther King, Politics, race, raising black boys, Relationships, Revolution, Slavery, Streets of Rage | Tagged A Red Record, Al Capone, American Fiction, Christiaen van Couwenbergh, Civil War, EJI, Equal Justice Initiative, Fifteenth Amendment, Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Ku Klux Klan, miscegenation, No Negro Domination, Reconstruction, Regulators, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rudy Giuliani, The Rape of the Negro Girl, Trump | Leave a comment

The Assassination of Dr. King – My first “political memory”

Posted on April 4, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

My first political memory, at age 7, is the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I was too young to remember the assassinations of JFK and Malcolm X, and although RFK would be assassinated later in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, crime, ezwwaters, Growing Up, John F. Kennedy, Lest We Forget, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Murder, Poetry, Politics, race, raising black boys, Revolution, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, urban decay, Urban Impact | Tagged Andrew Goodman, Decisive Decade, James Chaney, JFK, Jim Crow, Malcolm X, Michael Schwerner, Mississippi Burning, MLK, RFK, The Black Blood of Poetry | 1 Comment

From the American Revolution to the Black Arts Cultural Revolution

Posted on February 21, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

After the American Revolution, most of the defining moments in American history involve or revolve around Black people. Black folk were even involved in the American Revolution, fighting on both sides – the British promised Africans and the descendants of … Continue reading →

Posted in Black patriotism, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, ezwwaters, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Growing Up, John F. Kennedy, Lest We Forget, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Nation of Islam, Patriotism, Poetry, Politics, race, Revolution, Slavery, Streets of Rage, urban decay, Urban Impact | Tagged 1619, 1619 Project, American Revolution, Boston Massacre, Camelot, Crispus Attucks, JFK, Larry Neal, RFK, The Black Arts Era | Leave a comment

The Black Arts Movement

Posted on February 8, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

The theme for this Black History Month is African Americans and the Arts. For purposes of this blog, I’ll highlight the “Black Arts Era” (1960-1975). The Black Arts Era began at the very beginning of what Samuel F. Yette, influential … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Education, ezwwaters, John F. Kennedy, Lest We Forget, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Murder, Nation of Islam, Politics, race | Tagged Black History Month, Decisive Decade, democracy, JFK, Larry Neal, Malcolm X, MLK, Muhammad Ali, RFK, Samuel Yette, The Black Arts Era | 2 Comments

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