Tag Archives: Richard Nixon

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

Journey Through Crime, Justice & Literature, Part III

Posted on January 3, 2026 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Continued… (If you missed the second installment, then click here: Journey Through Crime, Justice & Literature, Part II) The modern War on Crime, as we know it, was inaugurated with Richard Nixon’s campaign for the presidency in 1968. Nixon declared … Continue reading →

Posted in Justice Chronicles, Literature & Cultural Criticism, Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged Abel Meeropol, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Alexis de Tocqueville, Attica Correctional Facility, Attica Rebellion, Billie Holiday, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Class, De Profundis, Democracy in America, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Great Society, Gustave De Beaumont, Hudson Valley Black Press, hyperincarceration, Loic Wacquant, Medellin Cartel, Michelle Alexander, Nelson Rockefeller, News on a Kidnapping, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Oscar Wilde, prison industrial complex, race, revanchist America, Reynold's Magazine, Richard Nixon, Strange Fruit, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, The Four Zoas, The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, The House of the Dead, The New Jim Crow, The United States Penitentiary System and its Application in France, war on crime, War on Drugs, Watergate, William Blake | 2 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

James Baldwin’s Journey Through Politics

Posted on May 6, 2023 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

Thirty years ago I wrote an essay, “The Election Time Blues.” It spoke about how political discourse in America was depressing; at least, it depressed me, and it continues to do so. When crime is on the platform, it becomes … Continue reading →

Posted in Literature & Cultural Criticism, Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged "Journey to Atlanta", Abraham Lincoln, Bill Clinton, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Donald Trump, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George H.W. Bush, Harriet Tubman, Isabel Wilkerson, James Baldwin, Joe Biden, John F. Kennedy, Nelson Rockefeller, patriotism, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Slavery, The Best and the Brightest, Willie Horton | 1 Comment

The Pledge of Allegiance, Little White Lies, and All that Jazz!

Posted on March 7, 2023 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

It has been more than 50 years since I was in elementary school in the New York City public school system, yet I remember, word for word, the “Pledge of Allegiance.” At this time, I thought nothing of it, but … Continue reading →

Posted in Justice Chronicles, Politics & Public Affairs, Race, History & American Society, Streets of Rage | Tagged 13th Amendment, Atomic Bomb, Black Codes, Black Power, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Camelot, Confederate States of America, Critical Race Theory, Culture Wars, Great Society, Growing Up, Hiroshima, internment of Japanese Americans, James Brown, John F. Kennedy, Little White Lies, Lyndon B. Johnson, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Nagasaki, patriotism, Pledge of Allegiance, raising black boys, Richard Nixon, Robert F. Kennedy, Segregation, Slave Codes, Slavery, urban decay, war on crime, World War II | Leave a comment

An American Odyssey

Posted on March 10, 2022 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

I like a good story, one reason why I like Greek comedies and tragedies, and I fancy myself a storyteller. So, I’ll tell you a story. . . Once upon a time (1973), Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York State … Continue reading →

Posted in Criminal Justice & Punishment, Justice Chronicles, Mother's Messages, Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged Elaine Bartlett, Family, Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett, life sentences, Nelson Rockefeller, Osborne Association, Relationships, Richard Nixon, Rockefeller Drug Laws, urban decay, war on crime, War on Drugs | Leave a comment

The Crimes of Bill Clinton Cannot Be Expugned

Posted on April 20, 2016 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

As Hillary Clinton sprints to the finish line, seemingly to be the democratic candidate for the presidency, I keep thinking of the role her husband, President Bill Clinton, played in the mass incarceration of the nation, specifically Black men. Granted, … Continue reading →

Posted in Criminal Justice & Punishment, Justice Chronicles, Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged Bill Clinton, Crack epidemic, Election Year 2016, Hillary Clinton, Mass Incarceration, politics, raising black boys, Richard Nixon, war on crime | 2 Comments

PROSECUTORS, POLICE-INVOLVED SHOOTINGS, THE CONSTITUTION, THE KKK, POSSES, AND THE RULE OF LAW

Posted on December 11, 2014 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

I’ve been thinking about when state prosecutors fail to do their jobs in police-involved killings of unarmed individuals, that is, fail to get indictments – though we all know, those of us who have studied the criminal criminal justice system, … Continue reading →

Posted in Criminal Justice & Punishment, Justice Chronicles, Politics & Public Affairs | Tagged 1955 Mississippi, a prosecutor can get a ham sandwich indicted, Eric Garner, Ferguson Missouri, Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Great Society, Hayes-Tilden Compromise, Ku Klux Klan, law and order, Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., Michael Brown, murder, NYC, NYPD, police involved shooting, posses, prosecutors, Richard Nixon, rule of law, runaway slaves, Slavery, Sol Wachtler, Staten Island, The Compromise of 1850, U.S. Constitution | Leave a comment

A New Paradigm – Elevating the Voice of Formerly Incarcerated People

Posted on May 7, 2014 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

With the recent launch of JustLeadershipUSA, Glenn Martin, President and Founder of JustLeadershipUSA, is looking to elevate the voice of Americans impacted by crime and incarceration, especially people who have been imprisoned, by positioning them as “informed, empowered reform partners.” … Continue reading →

Posted in Advocacy, Research & Lived Expertise | Tagged 13th Amendment, Alex Haley, Alexis de Beaumont, All of Us or None, Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Blessed and Highly Favored: Memoirs of a Multiple Felon, But They All Come Back: Facing the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry, But They All Come Back: Rethinking Prisoner Reentry, Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, Citizens Against Recidivism, criminal justice system, disenfranchisement, Elaine Bartlett, Era of Reentry, Exodus Transitional Community, felon disenfranchisement, formerly incarcerated people, franchise, Frederick Douglass, George Pataki, Glenn E. Martin, Great Society, Gustave de Tocqueville, Harvey Brown, incarceration, Jennifer Gonnerman, Jeremy Travis, Julio Medina, JustLeadershipUSA, leadership development, Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett, Lyndon B. Johnson, Malcolm X, mandatory minimum sentencing, Mass Incarceration, Michelle Alexander, New York, On the Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application in France, Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, parole releasing policies, Piper Kerman, Richard Nixon, Rockefeller Drug Laws, slavery and imprisonment in the United States, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, The Ballot or the Bullet, the glass ceiling, the green wall, The Life of an Ex-Con, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Theo Harris, United States, United States Supreme Court, war on crime, What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? | Leave a comment

The King is Dead!

Posted on January 20, 2014 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

The King is dead! I was 7 years young when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Growing up in the ‘60s, what one historian called the Decisive Decade, there was death all around. At 7, I didn’t understand the impact … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics & Public Affairs, Race, History & American Society | Tagged 60's, assassination, Decisive Decade, Justice, Martin Luther King Jr., murder, patriotism, Richard Nixon | Leave a comment

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