To Be awake is To be Alive.
- HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A recurring theme in Walden is Thoreau’s appreciation for the clarity of morning and being awake in the physical but also intellectual, poetic, and divine sense. He sought “to wake my neighbors up” metaphorically with his experiment in living simply. A staunch abolitionist, Thoreau also recounts being arrested during a visit to the village and put in jail overnight for refusing to pay a poll tax that he felt indirectly supported the Mexican-American War and expansion of slavery—an experience that led to his Essay on Civil Disobedience that would later influence Mahatma Gandhi and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We are a grassroots movement of educators, lawyers, artists, and concerned citizens who seek to warn against the rising threat of authoritarianism and reclaim the word "woke" from distortion, restoring its historic meaning as a collective call to resistance and action: to stay alert, informed, and defend democracy and our rights.
Signs of America's alarming slide into a dangerous tyranny were alluded to in Project 2025 and have since been enacted on a dizzying and disastrous scale that some have likened to fascism. Two key targets have been DEI and so-called "woke ideology." Yet only in an opposite world would “woke”—a term rooted in awareness, justice, and vigilance—become a justification for rolling back decades of progress in civil rights and erasing a more inclusive and full account of our nation’s history.
Attacks like these are not new. DEI and “woke ideology” are simply the latest bogeymen of right-wing conservatives, just as Critical Race Theory and multiculturalism were in the past. So many important institutions and everyday people have been targeted and removed in response to this manufactured threat.
It begs the question: What exactly is the alternative they seek? A people asleep to injustice, inequality, corruption, and basic decency? An uninformed, intolerant republic that no longer cares about the Constitution, all of its citizens, or our most cherished democratic institutions?
We aim to set the record straight with a comprehensive Resources page, campaign updates, and an ongoing social media presence.
THEY WANT YOU ASLEEP
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STAY WOKE
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THEY WANT YOU ASLEEP - STAY WOKE -
America Asleep
Wake up America! Civilization calls every man, woman and child! James Montgomery Flagg (1877-1960), Library of Congress
After two and a half years of neutrality, the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917. James Montgomery Flagg, who created some of the war's most indelible images, sounded the alarm for all citizens in this poster which was featured in "Wake Up, America" Day in New York City just thirteen days later on April 19th. Actress Mary Arthur was Flagg's model for Columbia who is a personification of America and Liberty. She is shown asleep, wearing patriotic stars and stripes and a Phrygian cap a symbol of freedom since Roman times. While she dozes against a fluted column, another visual reference to Western classical antiquity and civilization, sinister storm clouds gather in the background.
