Tag Archives: Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass

Celebrating 65 Years of Life

Posted on October 1, 2025 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

I saw the best minds of my generation drop out of school and get their education on the streets, in the schools of hard knocks: in group homes, reform schools, jails, reformatories, insane asylums, and prisons. They dropped out of … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics & Public Affairs, Streets of Rage | Tagged being a teenager, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Family, fiction, history, life, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, raising black boys, The Wretched of the Earth, writing | 1 Comment

Exploring the Legacy of Anti-Blackness in Poetry

Posted on August 6, 2025 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

I have been working on The Black Blood of Poetry for several years. Over the next 30 days, I will be revising the manuscript to submit to contests and publishers. My Artist Statement about The Black Blood of Poetry: The … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics & Public Affairs, Streets of Rage | Tagged Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, books, Growing Up, Osborne Association, poem, poems, Poetry, raising black boys, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, writing | 5 Comments

Toni Morrison Slays Moby Dick

Posted on April 28, 2025 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Toni Morrison writes that Moby Dick is “[a] complex, heaving, disorderly, profound text.” In my attempt, in my teens and twenties, to read as many “classics” as possible, I set out, like Ahab, to conquer the great white whale of … Continue reading →

Posted in Education & Teaching, Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged Aunt Jemima, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, book-review, books, Candace Owens, Clarence Thomas, Herman Melville, horror, James Baldwin, January 6th, Kamala Harris, Many Thousands Gone, Moby-Dick, reading, Toni Morrison, Uncle Tom, Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The African American Presence in American Literature, W. E. B. Du Bois, writing | 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 Politics & Public Affairs, Religion | Tagged 1619, 1619 Project, Alice Walker, Banned books, Barnes & Noble, Black History Month, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Black Wall Street, Cesar Chavez, Florida, Kansas, Lorraine Hansberry, Martin Luther King Jr., Oklahoma, PEN America, Pennsylvania, Rosa Parks, Rosewood, Slavery, Texas, The Birth of a Nation, The Clansman, The Fire Next Time, Thomas Dixon Jr., Through the Fire, Toni Morrison, Virginia | 1 Comment

Significance of Black History Month: A Deep Exploration

Posted on February 2, 2025 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Uplifting my Black History Series Blog. Next year will be the 100th Anniversary of what we know call Black History Month! Continue reading →

Posted in Race, History & American Society | Tagged 1619, 1880 U.S. Census, Barbados, Black History Month, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Carter G. Woodson, Lift Every Voice and Sing, Negro History Week, North Carolina, The Miseducation of the Negro | 3 Comments

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 Politics & Public Affairs, Religion, Streets of Rage | Tagged 1968, Black Power, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Civil Rights, Civil Rights Era, Great Society, Growing Up, history, Martin Luther King Jr., news, politics, raising black boys, Relationships, Richard Nixon, Robert F. Kennedy, The Choice: The Issue of Black Survival in America | 1 Comment

Neither Snow nor Rain nor Heat nor Gloom of Night Stays Hate Mail from Being Delivered

Posted on May 20, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Long before my first, award-winning book, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass: Remembrance of Things Past and Present, an epic poem on the captivity, exploitation and suffering of Black people in America, was published (2000), I knew I … Continue reading →

Posted in Books & Writing Projects, Criminal Justice & Punishment | Tagged Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Chuck Culhane, clemency, Endless Punishment is a crime, executive clemency, Gary McGivern, Kathy Hochul, Mario Cuomo, Nelson Rockefeller, Newsday, Saskia Keeley | 2 Comments

The Writing Life: Writing An Award-Winning Epic Poem

Posted on May 13, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

My epic poem, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass: Remembrance of Things Past and Present, was a co-winner of the 1998 Edwin Mellen Poetry Prize for an epic poem on the theme, “the captivity, exploitation, and suffering of … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged 1998 Edwin Mellen Poetry Prize, Africa's Gift to America, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Civil War, Hayes-Tilden Compromise, J.A. Rogers, James Weldon Johnson, Lift Every Voice and Sing, Rene Descartes, Sex & Race, Slavery, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Picture of Dorian Gray, W. E. B. Du Bois | 1 Comment

Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial: ‘My Lord, What a Morning’ — April 9, 1939

Posted on April 9, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

…Marian Anderson Performs for 75,000 Outside Lincoln Memorial, because she was banned from indoor venues because of her race. See https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/apr/09. My poetic tribute to Marian Anderson, in my collection, The Black Feminine Mystique:

Posted in Race, History & American Society | Tagged Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Marian Anderson, Poetry, The Black Feminine Mystique | 1 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 Growing Up, Politics & Public Affairs, Race, History & American Society, raising black boys, Revolution, urban decay, Urban Impact | Tagged Andrew Goodman, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Decisive Decade, Growing Up, James Chaney, Jim Crow, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Michael Schwerner, Mississippi Burning, murder, Poetry, raising black boys, Robert F. Kennedy, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, The Black Blood of Poetry, urban decay | 1 Comment

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