20th century
Folk singer-songwriter Lead Belly used the phrase “stay woke” on a 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,[2] who wrote in 1923, “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!”[2][6] 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.”[6][2] 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”.[11]
Black American folk singer-songwriter Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. 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.”[2][12] 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.”[2]
1920’s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke