“Everybody down there, stay woke. Keep their eyes open.” - Leadbelly
This needs to be persevered, I think. “Woke” is neither new or modern, and every asshat around that tries to reframe this phrase as either liberal or “extreme leftist” needs to be put in check about the history of the phrasing.
I know this has been picked up before, but he’s not telling people to “stay woke” as in “have woke opinions”, but rather as in “stay alert/awake because people are out to get you”. Seems like a stretch to say the modern use originates from Leadbelly, it just originates from the English language.
Love Leadbelly though. The song this is from is Scottsboro Boys.
Warning about unsafe places for black/poor folks is not so uncommon in Blues music, and it makes sense as a way of spreading the news. Leadbelly warns about Houston in his version of Midnight Special, though he probably wasn’t the first to do so:
If you ever go to Houston
Boy, you better walk right
And you better not squabble, and you better not fight
Benson Crocker will arrest you, Jimmy Boone will take you down
You can bet your bottom dollar, penitentiary boundI believe that that the initial interpretation is what lead to the modern one. Being awake to your surroundings at large is, imo, the same meaning for old and new meanings of the term. I could be wrong here, but in my experience both mean having a general awareness of what’s happening around you and keeping an eye on how to preserve your rights.
Edits; typos/autocorrect
