stay woke

Words of the Week – Stay Woke

Scripture: I Thessalonians 5:1-11 The phrase stay woke has been present in African American Vernacular English (Ebonics) since the 1930s. It is referred to as an awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans. The phrase was uttered in recordings from the mid-century by my wife’s great uncle, folk singer Huddie Leadbetter (Lead Belly). He used the phrase as part of a spoken afterword to his 1938 recording of his song “Scottsboro Boys,” which tells the story of nine teenagers falsely accused, convicted and jailed of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931. Erykah Badu admonished her post