How did woke go from meaning “Black” to “Bad?”

What exactly is “the woke?” Where did “woke” come from? And how did it become apparently worthy of gag orders instituted by politicians and administered with the might of the government? When did it transform from its roots in Black American vernacular to a supposedly all-encompassing, terrifying force emblazoned across increasingly fear-mongering headlines in the United States and even now in parts of Europe?

Put simpler: How did woke go from meaning “Black” to “Bad?” (link to article).

Michael Harriot, columnist at TheGrio and author of the upcoming book, Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America, explains that this kind of insidious takeover and flipping of Black vernacular to anti-Black pejorative has numerous parallels in America’s past and runs all the way up to present day. 

“When you look at the long arc of history and America’s reaction to the request for Black liberation – every time Black people try to use a phrase or coin a phrase that symbolizes our desire for liberation, it will eventually become a cuss word to white people,” Harriot says in an interview with LDF. (Ishena Robinson, “HOW WOKE WENT FROM "BLACK" TO "BAD")