Why Did 'Woke' Become the Enemy Instead of Injustice?

Guest Information
Shari Dunn (She/Her/Hers), Author and CEO/Principal ITBOM LLC
Website: https://thesharidunn.com/
Instagram: @thesharidunn.com6
Bluesky: @qualified-sharid.bsky.social
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharidunn/
Substack: https://sharidunn.substack.com/

Recording and Production
Production Studio:  Sasquatch Media Grounds @sasquatchmediagrounds
Original Music: Rainezra @rainezra and Vews @pointofvews
Audio Editing by: Kye Gilmer @residual_audio

Learn More/Sources
The following materials were referenced or informed this episode. Links are provided for transparency and further reading.

Lead Belly, “Scottsboro Boys” (1938), Library of Congress
https://www.loc.gov/item/jukebox-15460/

William Melvin Kelley, “If You’re Woke You Dig It,” New York Times Magazine (1962)
https://www.nytimes.com/1962/05/20/archives/if-youre-woke-you-dig-it.html

Merriam-Webster, “The History and Meaning of ‘Woke’”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/woke-meaning-origin

Snopes, “Origins of the Term ‘Stay Woke’”
https://www.snopes.com/articles/464795/origins-term-stay-woke/

Erykah Badu, “Master Teacher” (2008)
https://open.spotify.com/track/2ZqTz3tqZLqI6HnHqG2KcB

Powell v. Alabama (1932), U.S. Supreme Court
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/287/45/

Norris v. Alabama (1935), U.S. Supreme Court
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/294/587/

Emmett Till, National Museum of African American History and Culture
https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/emmett-till

Jim Crow laws, National Archives
https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/jim-crow

Civil Rights Act of 1964, U.S. Department of Justice
https://www.justice.gov/crt/civil-rights-act-1964

Voting Rights Act of 1965, U.S. Department of Justice
https://www.justice.gov/crt/voting-rights-act-1965

Fair Housing Act of 1968, U.S. Department of Justice
https://www.justice.gov/crt/fair-housing-act-1

Redlining maps and history, Mapping Inequality Project (University of Richmond)
https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/

Gallup polling on Martin Luther King Jr.’s public approval
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/229376/gallup-vault-martin-luther-king-jr.aspx

Martin Luther King Jr., “Beyond Vietnam” speech (1967), Stanford King Institute
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam

FBI COINTELPRO records on Martin Luther King Jr.
https://vault.fbi.gov/Martin%20Luther%20King%2C%20Jr.

Malcolm X background and post–Nation of Islam work, Stanford King Institute
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/malcolm-x

John Lewis and Bloody Sunday at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, National Park Service
https://www.nps.gov/articles/bloody-sunday-edmund-pettus-bridge.htm

Executive Order 10925 (1961), The American Presidency Project
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-10925

Executive Order 11246 (1965), U.S. Department of Labor
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp/executive-order-11246

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), U.S. Supreme Court
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/438/265/

U.S. Department of Justice, Ferguson Report (2015)
https://www.justice.gov/opa/file/800146/download

Pew Research Center, Black Lives Matter coverage and polling
https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/race-ethnicity/black-lives-matter/

U.S. Census Bureau, racial wealth gap data
https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/wealth.html

Federal Reserve, Survey of Consumer Finances
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, maternal mortality by race
https://www.cdc.gov/maternal-mortality/php/data-research/index.html

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, environmental justice
https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice

Bureau of Justice Statistics, race and sentencing data
https://bjs.ojp.gov/topics/race-and-ethnicity

Florida Stop WOKE Act (HB 7, 2022), Florida Senate
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/7

Florida Parental Rights in Education Act (2022), Florida Senate
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/1557

PEN America, educational censorship and gag order reports
https://pen.org/report/educational-gag-orders/

ACLU of Florida, analysis of anti-DEI laws
https://www.aclufl.org/en/issues/free-speech/stop-woke-act

New York Times reporting on Ron DeSantis and “wokeness”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/us/politics/desantis-woke-florida.html

National Archives, “Reconstruction: Carpetbaggers, Scalawags, and the Ku Klux Klan”
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/reconstruction

Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Reconstruction Era overview
https://americanhistory.si.edu/reconstruction-era

Library of Congress, Reconstruction primary sources and essays
https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/civil-war-and-reconstruction-1861-1877/reconstruction/

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