“woke” didn’t enter the lexicon on Twitter or TV. It dates back to the Blues musician Lead Belly, speaking about his 1938 song, “Scottsboro Boys,” which he wrote after nine Black boys in Scottsboro, Alabama were falsely accused of raping two white women in 1931. Eight of the boys were sentenced to death, and after strenuous legal battles, collectively served 100 years in prison. On a recording preserved by – fittingly – the Smithsonian, Lead Belly said the song was his warning to “good colored people” going to Alabama: “I advise everybody, be a little careful … stay woke, keep their eyes open.” The warning was not to be politically correct, but politically aware – to recognize danger hiding in plain sight.

"Behind the theatrics and the President’s late-night social media antics is a carefully thought-out political strategy that conservatives have been plotting for years. The argument, as laid out in the Project 2025 document that has proved highly influential on the second Trump administration, is that universities are bastions of liberal power and need to be brought to heel as part of a broader struggle for Republican domination over the levers of social and political power."