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First used in 1938 by Huddie William Ledbetter ‘Lead Belly’ in Scotsboro Boys. The phrase was repeated, by a union official, in 1940 to J Saunders Redding, who used it in an academic article in 1942. When Redding wrote “stay woke”, he meant stay alert for injustice, discrimination, prejudice, unfairness, to anyone, irrespective of race, colour, religion, sexual orientation or anything else.
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