Stay Woke

Maya Angelou was right. When someone tells you who they are, believe them. In particular, believe those who endorse “anti-wokism.” Those people fear and despise you. The first recognized use of “woke” was pronounced by Marcus Garvey in 1923. “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa,” was his advice for pan-national Black people be alert and responsive to their suppression and to react vigorously to it. In 1938 Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter sang about nine young Black men who were deceitfully accused of raping two white women on a train in northeast Alabama in 1931. “Stay woke … Keep your eyes open” especially travelling through Alabama. In 1940, members of the Negro United Mine Workers swore that their striking brothers would “stay woke up longer” than their opposition. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. told the 1965 Oberlin College graduates: “There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revolution. … The great challenge facing every individual graduating today is to remain awake.” It took almost 75 years and the Black Lives Matter movement for racist personalities to comprehend the term which retains the same meaning, and it unsettled them. Rocked them, agitated, and alarmed them. Conservatives dread “woke” as promoting...