In some varieties of
African-American English,
woke is used in place of
woken, the usual
past participle form of
wake. This has led to the use of
woke as an adjective equivalent to
awake, which has become mainstream in the United States. While it is not known when being awake was first used as a metaphor for political engagement and activism, one early example in the United States was the paramilitary youth organization the
Wide Awakes, which formed in
Hartford, Connecticut, in 1860 to support the Republican candidate in the
1860 presidential election,
Abraham Lincoln. Local chapters of the group spread rapidly across northern cities in the ensuing months and "triggered massive popular enthusiasm" around the election. The political militancy of the group also alarmed many southerners, who saw in the Wide Awakes confirmation of their fears of northern, Republican political aggression. The support among the Wide Awakes for
abolition, as well as the participation of a number of black men in a Wide Awakes parade in Massachusetts, likely contributed to such anxiety.
20th century used the phrase "stay woke" on a 1938 recording of his song "Scottsboro Boys". One of the earliest uses of the idea of
wokeness as a concept for black political consciousness came from Jamaican philosopher and social activist
Marcus Garvey, who wrote in 1923, "Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!" In a collection of aphorisms published that year, Garvey expanded the metaphor: "Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa! Let us work towards the one glorious end of a free, redeemed and mighty nation. Let Africa be a bright star among the constellation of nations." This sentiment was later echoed by singer
Lauryn Hill during her 2002 live album
MTV Unplugged No. 2.0, where she urged listeners to "wake up and rebel". Black American folk singer-songwriter Huddie Ledbetter,
Lead Belly, used the phrase "stay woke" as part of a spoken afterword to a 1938 recording of his song "Scottsboro Boys", which tells the story of
nine black teenagers and young men falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931. In the recording, Lead Belly says he met with the defendant's lawyer and the young men themselves, and "I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there (
Scottsboro)best stay woke, keep their eyes open." Aja Romano writes at
Vox that this usage reflects "black Americans' need to be aware of racially motivated threats and the potential dangers of white America." By the mid-20th century,
woke had come to mean 'well-informed' or 'aware', especially in a political or cultural sense. The
Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest such usage to a 1962
New York Times Magazine article titled "If You're Woke You Dig It" by African-American novelist
William Melvin Kelley, describing the appropriation of black slang by white
beatniks.
Woke had gained more political connotations by 1971 when the play
Garvey Lives! by
Barry Beckham included the line: "I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I'm gon' stay woke. And I'm gon help him wake up other black folk."
2008–2014: #Staywoke hashtag Through the late 2000s and early 2010s,
woke was used either as a term for literal
wakefulness, or as slang for suspicions of
infidelity. In the 21st century's first decade, the use of
woke encompassed the earlier meaning with an added sense of being "alert to social and/or
racial discrimination and injustice". This usage was popularized by soul singer
Erykah Badu's 2008 song "
Master Teacher", via the song's refrain, "I stay woke".
Merriam-Webster defines the expression
stay woke in Badu's song as meaning, "self-aware, questioning the dominant paradigm and striving for something better"; and, although within the context of the song, it did not yet have a specific connection to justice issues, Merriam-Webster credits the phrase's use in the song with its later connection to these issues. Songwriter
Georgia Anne Muldrow, who composed "Master Teacher" in 2005, told
Okayplayer news and culture editor Elijah Watson that while she was studying jazz at
New York University, she learned the invocation
Stay woke from Harlem alto saxophonist
Lakecia Benjamin, who used the expression in the meaning of trying to "stay woke" because of tiredness or boredom, "talking about how she was trying to stay uplike literally not pass out". In homage, Muldrow wrote
stay woke in marker on a T-shirt, which over time became suggestive of engaging in the process of the search for herself (as distinct from, for example, merely personal productivity). According to
The Economist, as the term
woke and the
#Staywoke hashtag began to spread online, the term "began to signify a progressive outlook on a host of issues as well as on race". In a
tweet mentioning the Russian feminist rock group
Pussy Riot, whose members were imprisoned in 2012, Badu wrote: "Truth requires no belief. Stay woke. Watch closely. #FreePussyRiot". This has been cited by
Know Your Meme as one of the first examples of the #Staywoke hashtag.
2014–2015: Black Lives Matter supporters against
police brutality Following the
shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, the phrase
stay woke was used by activists of the
Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement to urge awareness of police abuses. The
BET documentary
Stay Woke, which covered the movement, aired in May 2016. Within the decade of the 2010s, the word
woke (the colloquial,
passively voiced past participle of
wake) obtained the meaning 'politically and socially aware' among BLM activists.
2015–2019: Broadening usage While the term
woke initially pertained to issues of racial prejudice and discrimination impacting African Americans, it came to be used by other activist groups with different causes. While there is no single agreed-upon definition of the term, it came to be primarily associated with ideas that involve identity and race and which are promoted by progressives, such as the notion of
white privilege or
slavery reparations for African Americans. According to communication studies scholar Gordana Lazić,
woke refers to "a heightened awareness of social inequalities and injustices".
Voxs Aja Romano writes that
woke evolved into a "single-word summation of leftist political ideology, centered on social justice politics and
critical race theory". Columnist
David Brooks wrote in 2017 that "to be woke is to be radically aware and justifiably paranoid. It is to be cognizant of the rot pervading the power structures." Sociologist Marcyliena Morgan contrasts
woke with
cool in the context of maintaining dignity in the face of social injustice: "While coolness is empty of meaning and interpretation and displays no particular consciousness, woke is explicit and direct regarding injustice, racism, sexism, etc." The term
woke became increasingly common on
Black Twitter, the community of African American users of the social media platform
Twitter. The phrase
stay woke became an
Internet meme, File:2018 Women's March in Missoula, Montana 119.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A woman draped in a rainbow flag and wearing sunglasses, standing with her back to the camera and holding a hand-lettered sign reading, "I [heart symbol] Naps But I Stay Woke"|Protester at a
2018 Women's March event in Missoula, Montana The term has gained popularity amid an increasing leftward turn on various issues among the
American Left; this has partly been a reaction to the right-wing politics of U.S. President
Donald Trump, who was elected in 2016, but also to a growing awareness regarding the extent of historical discrimination faced by African Americans. According to Perry Bacon Jr., ideas that have come to be associated with "wokeness" include a rejection of
American exceptionalism; a belief that the United States has never been a true
democracy; that people of color suffer from
systemic and
institutional racism; that white Americans experience
white privilege; that African Americans deserve reparations for slavery and post-enslavement discrimination; that disparities among racial groups, for instance in certain professions or industries, are automatic evidence of discrimination; that U.S. law enforcement agencies are designed to discriminate against people of color and so should be
defunded,
disbanded, or heavily reformed; that women suffer from
systemic sexism; that individuals should be able to identify with any
gender or none; that U.S.
capitalism is deeply flawed; and that Trump's election to the presidency was not an aberration but a reflection of the prejudices about people of color held by large parts of the U.S. population.
Les Echos lists
woke among several terms adopted by Generation Z that indicate "a societal turning point" in France. In May 2016,
MTV News identified
woke as being among ten words teenagers "should know in 2016". In the same year, the term was included as an entry in
Oxford English Dictionary. By 2019, the term
woke was increasingly being used in an ironic sense, as reflected in the books
Woke by comedian
Andrew Doyle (using the pen name
Titania McGrath) and
Anti-Woke by columnist
Brendan O'Neill. By 2022, usage of the term had spread beyond the United States, attracting criticism by right-wing political figures in Europe. Author writes that some leftists, such as writer and philosopher
Susan Neiman, criticize wokeness as a form of tribalism which divides the working class and distracts from the universalist class struggle. The term
performative wokeness has been used to refer to social media activity perceived as a self-serving and superficial form of activism, i.e. "
slacktivism". British journalist
Steven Poole comments that the term
woke is used to mock "overrighteous liberalism". This
pejorative sense of
woke means "following an intolerant and moralising ideology" according to
The Economist.
Americas Canada As in the United States, the term
woke is used by those on the political right wing in Canada to discredit individuals and policies they consider to be overly progressive. During a debate in 2023 on the
Law Society of Alberta's 2020 adoption of a rule which made certain Continuing Professional Development (CPD) training courses on
Indigenous Canadian history obligatory, a lawyer from the
Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms wrote an op-ed arguing that the course was a form of "wokeness". in the
2025 Canada federal election,
Conservative Party leader
Pierre Poilievre weaponized the term in his campaign, characterizing "social justice advocacy as an authoritarian threat".
Latin America Brazilian federal deputy
Kim Kataguiri has accused the government
under president Lula da Silva of promoting a "woke agenda" with a proposal to tax
streaming services and
social media networks while requiring a certain amount of content to come from Brazilian companies with 51% of capital and shareholders belonging to "identity groups".
United States Among
American conservatives and
centrists,
woke has come to be used primarily as an insult. Members of the
Republican Party have been increasingly using the term to criticize members of the
Democratic Party, while more centrist Democrats use it against more left-leaning members of their own party; such critics accuse those on their left of using
cancel culture to damage the employment prospects of those who are not considered sufficiently woke. Perry Bacon Jr. suggests that this "anti-woke posture" is connected to a long-standing promotion of
backlash politics by the Republican Party, wherein it promotes white and conservative fear in response to activism by African Americans as well as changing cultural norms. Those using the term pejoratively often believe that the extent of social problems have been exaggerated by such movements as Black Lives Matter. Among the uses by Republicans is the
Stop WOKE Act, a law that limits discussion of racism in Florida schools. A program of eliminating books by LGBT and black authors from schools was conducted by the Florida government and by
vigilantes calling themselves "woke busters". Florida governor and former presidential candidate
Ron DeSantis has frequently used the term, referring to his state as a place "where woke goes to die". Linguist and social critic
John McWhorter argues that the history of
woke is similar to that of
politically correct, another term once used self-descriptively by the left which was appropriated by the right as an insult, in a process similar to the
euphemism treadmill. Romano compares
woke to
canceled as a term for political correctness' gone awry" among the American right wing. Attacking the idea of wokeness, along with other ideas such as cancel culture and
critical race theory, became a large part of Republican Party electoral strategy. Beginning in the
first presidency of Donald Trump, commentators from the
alt-right, religious right, moderate liberals, and libertarians have attacked "woke" ideas and the "''''
", a phrase popularized by Elon Musk, as existential threats to American society. Trump stated in 2021 that the Biden administration was "destroying" the country "with woke", and Republican Missouri senator Josh Hawley used the term to promote his upcoming book by saying the "woke mob" was trying to suppress it. According to USA Today, the term woke'' has been "co-opted by
GOP activists".
Woke right By 2025, conservative commentators such as
Rod Dreher and
James A. Lindsay had begun using the term "woke right" to characterize far-right beliefs as a mirror of the far left. Political commentator
Jonathan Chait has described paleoconservative commentator
Pat Buchanan, who criticized the liberalism of the
Obama era in a way that prefigured
Trumpism, as the "godfather" of the "woke right". Linguist John McWhorter writes that
semantic broadening of the term "woke" resulted in a shift in its meaning to "a conspiracy-focused and punitive orientation to social change", regardless of left–right orientation. The term "woke right" has also been used by pro-
Israel sources to describe American conservatives who became increasingly critical of Israel during the
Gaza war. Following the
assassination of Charlie Kirk, right-wing activists and the U.S. government undertook a wide-reaching campaign to punish critics of Kirk for allegedly celebrating his death that soon turned into policing any criticism of Kirk or his ideology. Author
Jonathan Rauch of the
Brookings Institution has characterized it as a "woke right" campaign paralleling earlier efforts to suppress right-wing speech on college campuses. The term is also synonymous with leftism in news headlines and is commonly used in social media circles by critics of
secularism in India.
Europe Central Europe In Hungary, politician
Balázs Orbán stated that "we [Hungary] will not give up fighting against woke ideology". In Switzerland, members of the youth wing of the right-wing populist
Swiss People's Party have criticized Swiss bank
UBS for its diversity policies, calling them "woke".
France The phenomenon (sometimes translated 'wokeism') has also been used in
French politics to criticize
anti-racist movements and leftist scholarship, particularly since the
2022 French presidential election. Much of the opposition to sees it as an American import, incompatible with French values. Mohamed Amer Meziane reported that then-education minister
Jean-Michel Blanquer, organized a conference at which he argued "woke" ideology "plots against the greatness of a white European civilization" and is therefore an "anti-Republican political religion". This derogatory usage gave rise to the noun , suggesting a homogeneous political movement propagating an alleged woke ideology. French philosopher Pierre-Henri Tavoillot characterizes wokeism as a corpus of theories revolving around "
identity,
gender and
race", with the core principle of "revealing and condemning concealed forms of
domination", positing that all aspects of society can be reduced to a "dynamic of oppressor and oppressed", with those oblivious to this notion deemed "
complicit", while the "awakened (
woke)" advocate for the "abolition (cancel) of anything perceived to sustain such oppression", resulting in practical implementations such as adopting
inclusive language,
reconfiguring education or deconstructing
gender norms.
United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, anti-wokeness discourse is driven primarily by
Conservative Party politicians and right-wing media outlets. Conservative papers such as
The Daily Telegraph and
Daily Mail commonly publish articles critical of what they deem to be woke.
The Mail on Sunday publishes an annual "Woke List" criticising public figures for perceived "
virtue signalling". The right-wing television channel
GB News was proclaimed at its founding to be explicitly anti-woke. Its onetime chairman
Andrew Neil has presented a regular segment on the channel entitled "Wokewatch", which aims to be a counter-voice to "woke warriors". The term
woke is often used as a pejorative by conservative figures. During the run-up to the
2024 general election, the governing Conservative Party attracted criticism for attempting to create a
culture war based on the woke concept. While promoting her book
The Abuse of Power in 2023, former Conservative prime minister
Theresa May declared herself to be
woke, in the sense of "somebody who recognizes that discrimination takes place". In a survey by
YouGov, 73% of Britons who used the term said they did so in a disapproving way, 11% in an approving way and 14% neither used it in an approving or disapproving way. Columnist
Zoe Williams writes in
The Guardian that public discourse around
cycling has become "the perfect microcosm of the wokeness split in all its forms", with anti-cycling voices portraying cyclists as a "lunatic fringe".
Oceania During the
2022 Australian federal election campaign, both
Scott Morrison, then-prime minister and leader of the centre-right
Liberal Party, and
Anthony Albanese, the subsequently elected prime minister and leader of the centre-left
Australian Labor Party, insisted they were not "woke".
Peter Dutton, former
Opposition Leader and leader of the Coalition, has also used the term several times before. Members of minor right-wing parties, especially
Pauline Hanson's One Nation and the
United Australia Party, also frequently use the term. In the
2025 Australian federal election campaign opposition leader Dutton stated that he wanted to rid the schooling and university system of "woke" policies. In New Zealand, former deputy prime minister and leader of the
New Zealand First Party,
Winston Peters, referred to the government led by
Jacinda Ardern and the
New Zealand Labour Party as a "woke guilt industry". Thenopposition leader
Judith Collins also referred to Ardern as "woke". In March 2025, Peters declared a "war on woke" during his "State of the Nation" speech, taking aim at
DEI,
sexual education programs at schools, and
"Cultural Marxism". == Reception and legacy ==