Origin Stories Brenda Riddell Origin Stories Brenda Riddell

Origin Story: Woke

“Woke” began as a word of vigilance — and of care.
Rooted in African American Vernacular English, it originally meant being awake to injustice, especially racism and oppression. One of the earliest uses came in 1938, when blues singer Lead Belly warned listeners to “stay woke” to racial danger after singing The Scottsboro Boys.

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PEW Research Brenda Riddell PEW Research Brenda Riddell

Pew Research: Prices and Housing Top America’s Economic Worries

Most Americans still don’t like what they see in the economy: only 26% call conditions excellent or good, while 74% say they’re fair or poor. That topline hasn’t budged much in three years—but the parties have flipped positions. 44% of Republicans now rate the economy positively (their highest since Trump’s first term), compared with just 10% of Democrats.

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Origin Stories Brenda Riddell Origin Stories Brenda Riddell

Origin Stories: Antifa

“Antifa” is short for “anti-fascist.” Its roots trace back to Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, when militant leftists organized to resist the rise of fascist regimes in Italy and Germany. The name resurfaced in the 1980s with punk and skinhead groups in Germany, who fought neo-Nazi violence in their streets.

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PEW Research Brenda Riddell PEW Research Brenda Riddell

Pew Research: TikTok Is Becoming America’s Newsroom

TikTok isn’t just for dance challenges anymore — it’s becoming America’s newsroom. A new Pew study finds one in five U.S. adults now regularly get news on TikTok, up from just 3% in 2020. In fact, no other social media platform Pew has studied has experienced faster growth in news consumption during that time. Among adults under 30, that share has soared to 43%. Even a quarter of 30-to-49-year-olds now use TikTok as a news source. More than half of TikTok’s users overall say they consume news there — rivaling Facebook, X, and Truth Social.

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Origin Stories Brenda Riddell Origin Stories Brenda Riddell

Origin Stories

Love it or hate it, the Internal Revenue Service has been around nearly as long as the United States itself. Its roots stretch back to the Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1862, creating the office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue and imposing the nation’s first federal income tax. The tax was meant to fund the Union’s war effort — and it worked, bringing in millions of badly needed dollars.

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