Stay Woke

Woke is a slang term that has made its way into the mainstream from some varieties of African American English. In AAE, awake is often rendered as woke, as in, “I was sleeping, but now I’m woke.”

Where does woke come from?

Some instances of woke and stay woke in reference to a state of alertness or awareness among Black people appear as early as the 1920s. In 1923, Jamaican Black nationalist leader, Marcus Garvey urged Black people to “wake up” as a call to action in his summons, “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up, Africa!”

Shortly after, an early written instance of stay woke appeared in the Houston Informer, an African American newspaper in 1924:

Have you heard the latest street slang, “Stay Woke?” While some of the slang expressions do not have much meaning or significance, this recent one does. It means that one should ever be on the job; should be on the alert and not rat or sleep at the post of duty … —C.F. Richardson, Houston Informer, 24 May 1924

By 1938, American blues musician Lead Belly (also known as Huddie Ledbetter) used the phrase in an afterward of his song “Scottsboro Boys.” The song was in reference to a group of Black teenagers who were falsely accused of a crime.

“I advise everybody to be a little careful when they go along through there; best stay woke, keep their eyes open.” —Lead Belly, Scottsboro Boys, 1938

Written instances continued to pop up in the 1960s and 1970s: One appeared in a 1962 New York Times article about Black language entitled, “If You're Woke You Dig It; No mickey mouse can be expected to follow today's Negro idiom without a hip assist."

About a decade later, Barry Beckham’s 1972 play Garvey Lives used the phrase in reference to Marcus Garvey’s teachings:

“I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I’m gon’ stay woke. And I’m gon’ help him wake up other Black folk.” —Barry Beckham, Garvey Lives!, 1972

Stay woke

Woke’s transformation into a byword of social awareness started decades earlier but began to be more broadly known in 2008, with the release of Erykah Badu’s song “Master Teacher”:

Even if yo baby ain't got no money

To support ya baby, you

(I stay woke)

Even when the preacher tell you some lies

And cheatin on ya mama, you stay woke

(I stay woke)

Even though you go through struggle and strife

To keep a healthy life, I stay woke

(I stay woke)

Everybody knows a black or a white there's creatures in every shape and size

Everybody

(I stay woke)

Erykah Badu was also among early users of the phrase on X (formerly Twitter) when she used the hashtag in a 2012 tweet to display solidarity with the Russian punk band Pussy Riot:

Truth requires belief. Stay woke. Watch closely. #FreePussyRiot. … —Erykah Badu, X (formerly Twitter), 8 Aug. 2012

Stay woke began circulating social media in reference to three different meanings: staying awake, being aware/suspicious of a cheating partner, and having awareness of social justice issues.

Soon the meaning narrowed, and stay woke became a watch word in parts of the Black community for those who were self-aware and striving for something better. But stay woke and woke became part of a wider discussion in 2014, immediately following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The word woke became entwined with the Black Lives Matter movement; instead of just being a word that signaled awareness of injustice or racial tension, it became a word of action. Activists were woke and called on others to stay woke. Use of stay woke became popular on Black Twitter and began making its way into popular culture. In 2017, rapper Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) used “stay woke” as a hook in his song “Redbone” in reference to a cheating partner. However, when the song was used in Jordan Peele’s Get Out, the phrase became further associated with its political “awareness” or “alertness” definition.

How is woke used today?

Like many other terms from Black culture that have been adopted into the mainstream, woke has gained broader uses. Woke soon became associated with performative activism, with people often using the term mockingly or sarcastically to suggest insincerity about one’s expressed beliefs about social issues:

“Fake woke” behavior arises. We put the hashtags on our social media. #Sayhername, #icantbreathe, #blacklivesmatter. And repeat. The problem is that the level of concern we express online doesn’t match the everyday behavior we exhibit. Until people practice anti-racist behavior, nothing will change. —Surayya Walters, The Daily Pennsylvanian, 6 June, 2020

The disapproving sense of woke is today quite common, often used by politically conservative individuals to criticize people who are considered too politically liberal, especially in relation to issues of race and social justice.

Additional broader uses of woke include woke-washing and woke capitalism, with the former referring to the use of social movements by companies to increase sales while failing to actively contribute to social change or address these issues within their companies and the latter similarly being used to describe a company’s public support of and investment in social issues.

Woke-washing creates the appearance of intention without the substance of action. —Vern Howard, Forbes, 15 June 2021

… But woke capitalism is a paper tiger. Companies embrace identity and cultural inclusion as a way to expand their market share to new communities while obscuring their raw political power and the ruthless underpinning realities of shareholder capitalism … —Lydia Polgreen, The New York Times, 16 July 2023