Tag Archives: Family

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 Family, Memory & Personal Essays, Race, History & American Society | Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Bard College, Bicentennial, Black Arts Movement, Black History Month, Black Patriotism, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Carter G. Woodson, Decisive Decade, Family, fathers, Fourth of July, Frederic, Frederick Douglass, Gerald Ford, Growing Up, Kent State, Martin Luther King Jr., Negro History Week, North Carolina, raising black boys, Samuel Yette, Segregation, The Black Blood of Poetry, The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch | 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 Family, Memory & Personal Essays, raising black boys | Tagged 1960s, Black Arts Era, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Civil War, Confederacy, Decisive Decade, Emmett Till, Family, fathers, Fourth of July, history, Jim Crow, Michael Easley, politics, raising black boys, Relationships, Richard Wright, Segregated South, Slavery, Southland, The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch, Virginia, War of Northern Aggression, World War II | Leave a comment

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 Family, Memory & Personal Essays | Tagged child welfare, Family, juveniles, Mentor, mentoring, Odysseus, Telemachus, Ulysses, writing | Leave a comment

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

Rereading Richard Wright’s Black Boy

Posted on July 12, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

When I first read Richard Wright’s Black Boy more than 40 years ago when I was a teenager, little that I knew about literature, I thought the writing was superb. I was doing a little writing then and thought Wright … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature & Cultural Criticism | Tagged being a teenager, Black Boy, Black Patriotism, Confederacy, Confederate flag, Family, fathers, Growing Up, Nashville TN, New South, North Carolina, raising black boys, Relationships, Richard Wright, Segregation, Slavery, Strange Fruit, Virginia, World War II | 1 Comment

A Fourth of July Day Lynching

Posted on July 5, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

For Norris Dendy 07.04.1933 (Clinton, South Carolina) To the Negro, what is the Fourth of July? A picnic celebration with family and friends Not a day to be beaten, not a day to die! On this celebration of Independence, still … Continue reading →

Posted in Race, History & American Society | Tagged Clinton South Carolina, Family, Independence Day, Norris Dendy, Poetry, white supremacy | Leave a comment

Daddy Dearest

Posted on February 22, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Posted in Family, Memory & Personal Essays | Tagged 1960s, Black Arts Era, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Civil War, Confederacy, Decisive Decade, Emmett Till, Family, fathers, Fourth of July, Jim Crow, Michael Easley, raising black boys, Relationships, Richard Wright, Segregated South, Slavery, Southland, The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch, Virginia, War of Northern Aggression, World War II | 3 Comments

Virginia on My Mind

Posted on August 19, 2023 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

There is something that keeps drawing me back to Virginia. Although my father was born in North Carolina, he grew up in Virginia and returned there in 1946 after he was discharged from the segregated U.S. Army. He was drafted … Continue reading →

Posted in Family, Memory & Personal Essays, Genealogy | Tagged 1960s, Bath County, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Decisive Decade, Family, fathers, Growing Up, Native Southern Sons, North Carolina, Red Summer, Segregation, Slavery, Virginia, World War I, World War II | 1 Comment

Remembering My Father as I Remember Maceo Snipes, Black Veteran, Shot to Death After Voting in Georgia Primary — July 18, 1946

Posted on July 19, 2023 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

As a teenager my father, a Native Southern Son (NC and VA), was drafted to serve in the segregated U.S. Army during World War II. Shortly after he was honorably discharged from the Army in 1946, he moved to Brooklyn, … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics & Public Affairs, Race, History & American Society | Tagged Black Patriotism, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Family, fathers, Growing Up, Maceo Snipes, murder, raising black boys, Relationships, Segregation, The Black Vote, World War II | Leave a comment

Mommy

Posted on March 31, 2022 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Some people have a fear of growing old. Some people die young. Those who fear growing old, methinks they wouldn’t want the alternative, dying young. Dying young shortens the timeline to fulfill dreams, to see the world, to see your … Continue reading →

Posted in Family, Memory & Personal Essays, Mother's Messages | Tagged being a teenager, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Family, raising black boys, Relationships | 3 Comments

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Tag Archives: Family

One Hundred Years of Black History

Daddy Dearest

How to Mentor Teens Effectively

Celebrating 65 Years of Life

Rereading Richard Wright’s Black Boy

A Fourth of July Day Lynching

Daddy Dearest

Virginia on My Mind

Remembering My Father as I Remember Maceo Snipes, Black Veteran, Shot to Death After Voting in Georgia Primary — July 18, 1946

Mommy

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