Sometime over the last 20 years, the word “woke” became a popular term to describe people who are open, tolerant, progressive, and aware of social injustices. But in truth, the usage of the “woke” goes back a lot further than that—and there’s a musical angle to all this. When the blues first appeared early in the 20th century, players looked for ways to express the pain in their hearts. This brings us to Lead Belly.
In 1938, he wrote a song called “Scottsboro Boys,” which told the story of nine Black teenagers who were unjustly and wrongly accused of sexual assault in Scottsboro Arizona. Some of the lyrics go “If I don’t go crazy, I’m sure gonna lose my mind/’Cause I can’t sleep for dreamin’, sure can’t stay woke for cryin’.”
Given the context of these lyrics, this could be the first use of “woke” to describe awareness of social injustice.
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