Tag Archives: raising black boys

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 Lest We Forget, Politics & Public Affairs, Streets of Rage | Tagged Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass; Slavery; Edwin Mellen Poetry Press, books, Growing Up, Osborne Association, poem, poems, Poetry, raising black boys, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, writing | 5 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 Lest We Forget, Politics & Public Affairs, Religion, Streets of Rage | Tagged 1968, Black Power, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Civil Rights, Civil RIghts Era, Growing Up, history, Martin Luther King Jr., news, politics, raising black boys, Relationships, RFK, richard nixon, The Choice: The Issue of Black Survival in America, The Great Society | 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 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 Lest We Forget, Politics & Public Affairs, Race, History & American Society, 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, Martin Luther King Jr., miscegenation, No Negro Domination, raising black boys, Reconstruction, Regulators, Relationships, Rudy Giuliani, Slavery, The Rape of the Negro Girl, Trump | Leave a comment

A Red Record

Posted on May 27, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In my last blog I indicated that in the next one I would write something about crime and punishment. For more than half my life, I have written extensively on the subject, in letters to editors, editorials, essays, and anthologies. … Continue reading →

Posted in Criminal Justice & Punishment, Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged #BlackLivesMatter, #BlueLivesMatter, A History of Racial Injustice, Corrections 360, Dred Scott Decision, EJI, Equal Justice Initiative, National Poetry Series, NYPD, police involved shooting, raising black boys, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, United States Supreme Court | Leave a comment

Streets of Rage Redux

Posted on May 2, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

When my childhood friend, Isa Rock, read and reviewed my novel, Streets of Rage, he wanted more. A few mornings ago, I started to think about more, and thus the process began in my head. My process as a writer … Continue reading →

Posted in Books & Writing Projects, Streets of Rage | Tagged being a teenager, juveniles, murder, Nation of Islam, raising black boys | Leave a comment

Advancing Alice Walker — and Her Nonfiction

Posted on April 11, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

I have a love-hate relationship with the body of work of Alice Walker. I love Walker’s nonfiction, and even some of her autobiographical sketches, where her prose, even when it is expressing anger, is righteous anger. Her nonfiction is clear, … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction & Short Stories | Tagged ALice Childress, Alice Walker, Anne Petry, Audre Lorde, Bebe Moore Campbell, Brothers and Sisters, Brown Girl Brownstone, Dorothy West, Edwidge Danticat, fathers, Gloria Naylor, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ida B. Wells, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose, Jamaica Kincaid, Jazz, Jubilee, June Jordan, Kindred, Lorraine Hansberry, Margaret Walker, Maya Angelou, Meridian, Nikki Giovanni, Ntozake Shange, Octavia Butler, Paule Marshall, protest novel, raising black boys, Relationships, Rita Dove, Sonia Sanchez, Suzan-Lori Parks, The Color Purple, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, The Women of Brewster Place, Toni Morrison, Topdog/Underdog, Wild Seed | 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 Growing Up, Lest We Forget, 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, JFK, Jim Crow, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Michael Schwerner, Mississippi Burning, murder, Poetry, raising black boys, RFK, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, The Black Blood of Poetry, urban decay | 1 Comment

Daddy Dearest

Posted on February 22, 2024 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, Lest We Forget | 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, North Carolina Governor Michael Easley, raising black boys, Relationships, Richard Wright, Segregated South, Slavery, Southland, The Ethics of Living Jim Crow, Virginia, War of Northern Aggression, World War II | 3 Comments

Happy Birthday to Black History Month!

Posted on February 7, 2024 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Black History Month is nearly 100 years old! Granted, it began as Black History Week, on February 7, 1926, and didn’t become Black History Month until February 10, 1976. My father, a Native Southern Son, was born in the same … Continue reading →

Posted in Education & Teaching, Lest We Forget, Politics & Public Affairs, Race, History & American Society | Tagged Black History Month, Black Patriotism, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Civil War, fathers, Frederick Douglass, Gerald Ford, Growing Up, Lost Cause, Martin Luther King Jr., Negro History Week, patriotism, raising black boys, segregated U.S. Army, The Miseducation of the Negro, W.E.B. DuBois, What is the Fourth of July to the Negro?, World War II | 2 Comments

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