Tag Archives: Reconstruction

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 Justice Chronicles, Literature & Cultural Criticism, Streets of Rage | Tagged 13th, 13th Amendment, Alexis de Tocqueville, Ava DuVernay, Black Codes, Charles Hynes, Conviction Integrity Unit, Darryl Alston, De Profundis, Draft Riots of 1863, Equal Justice Initiative, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Growing Up, Gustave De Beaumont, Hillary Clinton, hyperincarceration, Johnson Crime Commission, Jonathan Fleming, Kenneth P. Thompson, Letter from Birmingham Jail, life sentences, Loic Wacquant, Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., Mass Incarceration, Michael G. Pass, Nuremberg, Oscar Wilde, Post-Reconstruction, prison industrial complex, raising black boys, Reconstruction, Red Summer, Richard Nixon, Rosewood massacre, Sara Mayeux, school-to-prison pipeline, Slavery, The House of the Dead, Tulsa Race Riot, urban decay, war on crime, War on Drugs | Leave a 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 Politics & Public Affairs, Race, History & American Society, Streets of Rage | Tagged 15th Amendment, A Red Record, Al Capone, American Fiction, Christiaen van Couwenbergh, Civil War, Donald Trump, Equal Justice Initiative, Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter, Ida B. Wells, 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 | Leave a comment

Reconstruction Revisited

Posted on February 8, 2022 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

This book is, for the most part, unknown, even among history buffs, as I am. (I actually stumbled upon it more than 30 years ago. Someone had placed it among the trash!) This book though covers one of the most … Continue reading →

Posted in Race, History & American Society | Tagged 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, 15th Amendment, Hayes-Tilden Compromise, hyperincarceration, Reconstruction, Rutherford B. Hayes | Leave a comment

A Brief History of the Hayes-Tilden Compromise

Posted on August 4, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In order to understand the pathology of memorializing treasonous Confederates, look to the Hayes-Tilden Compromise (1876-77), which in effect ended the Reconstruction years (1865-1877), when Black people made tremendous strides, politically, economically, and socially, a mere 12 years after 246 … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics & Public Affairs, Race, History & American Society | Tagged 1619, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Civil War, Confederate memorials, Confederate Monuments, Confederate States of America, Confederate statues, General William Tecumseh Sherman, Hayes-Tilden Compromise, Jamestown, Malcolm X, patriotism, Plymouth Rock, Reconstruction, Slavery | Leave a comment

A Comparison of New York State Laws and Regulations and Slave Codes

Posted on July 18, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In the mid-1980s, while doing research on an essay, which I would entitle, “From the Plantation to the Penitentiary,” I came across something startling. I had already seen the connection between slavery and imprisonment, from the very beginning of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Race, History & American Society | Tagged 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, 15th Amendment, Alabama Slave Code of 1852, Andrew Hacker, Bill Clinton, Black Codes, chain gangs, Civil War, Confederate memorials, Confederate Monuments, Confederate statues, Convict Leasing, Hayes-Tilden Compromise, law and order, Louisiana Slave Code of 1824, NY Correction Law Sec. 170, penal slavery, peonage, private prisons, race card, Reconstruction, Slave Codes, Slavery, South Carolina Slave Code of 1740, Two Nations: Black and White Separate Hostile Unequal | Leave a comment

On this Day in American history – June 19, 1865 — Juneteenth (From the Equal Justice Initiative)

Posted on June 19, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Although President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation declared enslaved Black people in Confederate territories free, these locations were under Confederate control, which rejected the freedom of enslaved people on plantations throughout the South. The Proclamation did little to emancipate enslaved … Continue reading →

Posted in Race, History & American Society | Tagged 13th Amendment, Black Patriotism, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Civil War, Confederacy, Emancipation Proclamation, Equal Justice Initiative, Juneteenth, Mass Incarceration, racial hierarchy, racial injustice, racial terror, racial terror lynchings, Reconstruction, Segregation, Slavery, white supremacy | Leave a comment

On this Day in American history, September 14, 1874 — White Supremacist Militia Overthrows Louisiana’s Elected, Integrated State Government

Posted on September 14, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In 1872, William Pitt Kellogg, a supporter of Reconstruction, was elected governor of Louisiana, largely on the strength of his support among African-American voters. That same year, Caesar Carpenter Antoine, an African American man, was elected lieutenant governor. The electoral … Continue reading →

Posted in Race, History & American Society | Tagged Caesar Carpenter Antoine, Confederate army, Equal Justice Initiative, Frederick Nash Ogden, militia, Reconstruction, Ulysses S. Grant, White League, William Pitt Kellogg | Leave a comment

On this Day in American history, September 7, 1976 — First Black Person Elected to Statewide Office in the South Since Reconstruction

Posted on September 7, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

On September 7, 1976, Joseph Woodrow Hatchett was elected to a seat on the Florida Supreme Court, becoming the first black person elected to any statewide office in the South since the end of Reconstruction nearly a century before. A … Continue reading →

Posted in Race, History & American Society | Tagged Equal Justice Initiative, Hayes-Tilden Compromise, Jim Crow, Jimmy Carter, Joseph Woodrow Hatchett, racial terrorism, Reconstruction, Rubin Askew, Rutherford B. Hayes | Leave a comment

On this day in history, May 11, 1868 –Convict Leasing Begins in Georgia

Posted on May 11, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

After the Civil War, Georgia and other Southern states faced economic uncertainty. Dependent on enslaved black labor that was no longer available after emancipation and ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, Southern economies struggled to find a new solution. For many, … Continue reading →

Posted in Criminal Justice & Punishment, Justice Chronicles | Tagged 13th Amendment, Black Codes, Civil War, Convict Leasing, Equal Justice Initiative, Georgia, Georgia & Alabama Railroad, Reconstruction, Slavery, Thomas Ruger | Leave a comment

On this day in history, May 7, 1955 — Rev. George Lee Fatally Shot After Attempting to Register to Vote in Belzoni, Mississippi

Posted on May 7, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Reverend George Lee, co-founder of Belzoni, Mississippi’s NAACP chapter and the first African American to register to vote in Humphreys County since Reconstruction, is considered one of the first martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement. Rev. Lee first moved to … Continue reading →

Posted in Race, History & American Society | Tagged Belzoni Mississippi, Civil Rights Movement, Civil Rights Movement martyrs, Deep South, Equal Justice Initiative, Humphreys County Medical Center, Medgar Evers, NAACP, Reconstruction, Rev. George Lee, right to vote, voter registration, White Citizen's Council | Leave a comment

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