Tag Archives: Slavery

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 Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, crime, Growing Up, John F. Kennedy, Justice Chronicles, Lest We Forget, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Patriotism, Politics, raising black boys, Revolution, Slavery, Streets of Rage, urban decay, Urban Impact | Tagged Atomic Bomb, Black Codes, Black Power, Camelot, Confederate States of America, Critical Race Theory, Culture Wars, Great Society, Hiroshima, internment of Japanese Americans, James Brown, JFK, LBJ, Little White Lies, MLK, Nagasaki, Pledge of Allegiance, RFK, richard nixon, Segregation, Slave Codes, Slavery, Thirteenth Amendment, war on crime, World War II | Leave a comment

Racial Reckoning & Reparations

Posted on February 24, 2023 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

As a society, we (Americans) have talked about a “racial reckoning,” and reparations for the descendants of Africans who built this country. Neither a racial reckoning nor reparations have happened. A racial reckoning has not happened because most white folk … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, ezwwaters, Lest We Forget, race, Slavery | Tagged Bryan Stevenson, Critical Race Theory, Equal Justice Initiative, Esperanto, Manifest Destiny, racial Esperanto, racial reckoning, reparations, Slavery, W.E.B. DuBois, White Man's Burden | 2 Comments

The Three Pillars of American Society: Slavery, Segregation, and Hyperincarceration

Posted on March 1, 2022 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

America stands on three pillars: slavery, segregation, and hyperincarceration (incorrectly referred to as “mass incarceration”). These “pillars” implicate and impact mostly Black people, but also all people living in America or dreaming about coming to America. In fact, the U.S. … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, crime, ezwwaters, Justice Chronicles, Lest We Forget, Life Sentences, Politics, race, Slavery, Sometimes Blue Knights Wear Black Hats, Streets of Rage | Tagged Angela Davis, Are prisons obsolete?, Brown v. Board of Education, Charles E. Silberman, Confederacy, Criminal Violence Criminal Justice, Declaration of Independence, George Jackson, George Wallace, hyperincarceration, Jessica Mitford, Kind & Usual Punishment: The Prison Business, Loic Waquant, Mario Cuomo, Plessy v. Ferguson, Segregation, Slavery, Southland | Leave a comment

A Brief History of How “Black History” is Seen

Posted on September 6, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

What is called “Black History” in the United States of America is American history. In categorizing and cataloging “Black History” as such, and relegating it not only to one month of the year, February, but also the shortest month of … Continue reading →

Posted in Black patriotism, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Education, Lest We Forget, Patriotism, race, Revolution, Slavery | Tagged American Civil War, American Revolutionary War, Black history, Confederacy, Confederate icnoography, hyperincarceration, immigration, racial reckoning, Segregation, Slavery, treason, W.E.B.DuBois | 1 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 Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Lest We Forget, Malcolm X, Patriotism, race, Slavery | Tagged 1619, American Civil War, Confederade memorials, Confederate Monuments, Confederate States of America, Confederate statues, General William Tecumseh Sherman, Hayes-Tilden Compromise, Jamestown, Malcolm X, Plymouth Rock, Reconstruction, Slavery | Leave a comment

On this Day in American History — June 24, 2015, Confederate Flag Flies at Alabama Capitol until this day in 2015; Monuments Remain (From the Equal Justice Initiative 2020 Calendar)

Posted on June 24, 2020 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

On June 24, 2015, Alabama officials removed a Confederate flag flying on the grounds of the state capitol in Montgomery. The move came in response to national scrutiny of Confederate symbols on public property, triggered by a tragic shooting at … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Justice Chronicles, Politics, race, Slavery | Tagged Alabama, Brown v. Board of Education, Civil War, Confederate flag, Confederate iconography, Confederate Monuments, Confederate symbols, cultural genocide, desegregation, Equal Justice Initiative, Georgia, heritage, heritage laws, Mississippi, Montgomery Alabama, North Carolina, reestablishment of white supremacy, Robert E. Lee, Slavery, South Carolina, Southern Lives Matter, Tennessee, the knightliest of the knightly race, Virginia, white supremacist, white supremacy | 1 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 Black patriotism, Black Shadows and Through the White Looking Glass, Lest We Forget, race, Revolution, Slavery | Tagged 13th Amendment, American 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 6, 2010 — Alabama Prison Bans Pulitzer Prize-Winning Book, Slavery By Another Name

Posted on September 6, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

In September 2010, lawyers at the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a nonprofit civil rights law firm in Montgomery, Alabama, mailed a copy of Slavery by Another Nameto client Mark Melvin, then incarcerated at Kilby Correctional Facility. Written by award-winning journalist Douglas … Continue reading →

Posted in crime, Lest We Forget, Slavery, Uncategorized | Tagged censorship, Convict Leasing, Douglas Blackmon, Equal Justice Initiative, Kilby Correctional Facility, Slavery, Slavery by Another Name | Leave a comment

On this day in American history, August 26, 1874 — Mob of 400 Lynches Sixteen Black Men Kidnapped from Tennessee Jail

Posted on August 26, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

On August 26, 1874, sixteen African American men were held in the Gibson County Jail in Trenton, Tennessee, transferred from Picketsville, a neighboring town where they’d been arrested and accused of shooting at two white men. Around 2:00 a.m. that … Continue reading →

Posted in Lest We Forget, Uncategorized | Tagged Equal Justice Initiative, Gibson County Jail, Picketsville, Slavery, trenton Tennessee | 2 Comments

On this day in American history, August 20, 1619 — First Enslaved Africans Land in Jamestown, Virginia

Posted on August 20, 2018 by William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters

The stage was set for slavery in the United States as early as the 14th century, when Spain and Portugal began to capture Africans for enslavement in Europe. Slavery eventually expanded to colonial America, where the first enslaved Africans arrived … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Angola, Confederacy, Equal Justice Initiative, indentured servants, Jamestown, Sao Joao Bautista, Slavery, Treasurer, White Lion | Leave a comment

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