A protester holding a sign reading "rest in power" outside of the Hennepin County Government Center during the 2021 trial of Derek Chauvin

Rest in power (a variation on rest in peace) is an expression used to mourn, remember or celebrate a deceased person, especially someone who is thought to have struggled against systemic prejudice such as homophobia, transphobia, racism or suffered because of it, particularly in black and LGBTQ communities in the United States.[1] It has been used to eulogize victims of hate crimes while protesting the social inequality and institutionalised discrimination that may have led to their deaths. It is a common phrase to use to honor someone's legacy, though as an activist.

History

An early example of the phrase "rest in power" was published in an LA Weekly article about Latino gangs in East L.A., "Going up L.A." by Rubén Martínez, on 13 April 1989.[2]

Etymologist Barry Popik traced one of the earliest recorded uses of the phrase to a newsgroup post on February 18, 2000, which paid tribute to Oakland, California graffiti artist Mike 'Dream' Francisco, who had been shot and killed during an armed robbery. Dream's graffiti art was political in tone, and his pieces often critiqued the United States government's treatment of poor and marginalized people.[3] The post to alt.graffiti, by a contributor identified only as "SPANK", ended with the words "REST IN POWER PLAYA".[4]

By the mid-2000s, the phrase began to appear in print, again linked to young people's premature, violent deaths. In March 2003, under the headline "Rest In Power, Rachel Corrie", In These Times eulogised the death of activist Rachel Corrie at the hands of the Israeli military in Gaza.[5] In a 2005 opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, Meredith Maran reflected on 19-year-old Meleia Willis-Starbuck, a Dartmouth College scholarship student who was home in Berkeley for the summer when she was shot and killed by an unknown assailant outside her apartment. Writing of the makeshift public altar set up to mourn Willis-Starbuck, Maran wrote, "I've never seen 'Rest in Power' written as a substitute for 'Rest in Peace.'"[6]

A September 29, 2005, article in the Ottawa Citizen, a Canadian newspaper, described a public graffiti memorial for teenage Ottawa murder victim Jennifer Teague that portrayed "a smiling Ms. Teague beneath the words, 'Rest in power'" and framed by "two black angels."[7]

Protesting transphobia

"Rest in power" has since become widely used when mourning the deaths of trans people,[8][9] and is a rallying cry on the Transgender Day of Remembrance,[10] observed each year on November 20.[11]

Black Lives Matter

The parents of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old African-American who was fatally shot by George Zimmerman in 2012, wrote a 2017 nonfiction book titled Rest in Power about their son's life and legacy. In 2018 the book was adapted into a six-part television documentary series titled Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story.

But it was the deaths of two more African-Americans in the summer of 2014 – Michael Brown, who was shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner, who was choked to death by police in New York City – that galvanised the broader visibility of "Rest in power", along with other phrases that had previously circulated in vernacular usage in minority communities and among activists, such as "Black lives matter" and "stay woke".[12][13]

In the song 'Rest in Power', the official theme for the 2018 documentary series of the same name, Black Thought raps: "To them it's real, sins of the father remembered still / For every Trayvon Martin, there was an Emmett Till".[14]

Wider usage

"Rest in power" is sometimes used outside the context of activist social media to mark the deaths of respected public figures who leave strong legacies, even if they are not known for their political activism. Some internet users used the phrase to commemorate the assassination of Jo Cox, a British MP killed by a far-right gunman.[15] After the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022, some commentators used the phrase.[16]

References

  1. ^ "What does rest in power mean?". Dictionary.com. March 4, 2020. Archived from the original on March 30, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  2. ^ Martínez, Rubén (April 13, 1989). "Going up in L.A." LA Weekly. Retrieved February 28, 2024.
  3. ^ Taylor, Tara (May 1, 2014). "Remembering Dream Francisco". Alameda Magazine. Archived from the original on May 7, 2018. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  4. ^ Hampton, Rachelle (September 30, 2019). "How "Rest in Power" Went From Radical Eulogy to Kitschy Twitter Meme". Slate. Archived from the original on March 1, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  5. ^ Parrish, Geov (March 21, 2003). "Rest In Power Rachel Corrie (1979-2003)". In These Times. Retrieved March 26, 2022.
  6. ^ Maran, Meredith (July 21, 2005). "Gun Violence Tragedy in Berkeley / Meleia, in memoriam". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  7. ^ Popik, Barry (May 31, 2019). "Rest in Power (RIP)". BarryPopik.com. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  8. ^ Sosin, Kate (June 10, 2019). "Murders of black transgender women in Dallas raise fears in LGBTQ community". NBC News. Retrieved April 3, 2020. Blogger Monica Roberts writes a variation of the same headline over and over again. 'Number 3- Rest in Power and Peace Muhlaysia Booker.'
  9. ^ "Stop Trans Murders". National LGBTQ Task Force. Retrieved April 3, 2020.
  10. ^ McGranachan, Emily (November 20, 2015). "November 20th Is Transgender Day of Remembrance". Amnesty International US. Retrieved April 3, 2020. As trans rights activist and writer Joanna Cifredo told Amnesty activists at our Mid-Atlantic Conference in November 2014, 'One voice shouting doesn't make a whole lot of noise. But a whole group shouting makes a difference.' Join us; raise your voice! Rest in power.
  11. ^ Ennis, Dawn (November 20, 2019). "The Transgender Day of Remembrance: So Much Loss, So Much to Keep Fighting For". Daily Beast. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  12. ^ Hampton, Rachelle (September 30, 2019). "How "Rest in Power" Went From Radical Eulogy to Kitschy Twitter Meme". Slate. Retrieved April 3, 2020. What is indisputable at this point is that the nationwide unrest that exploded in the aftermath of the six hours that Brown's body lay on the hot Missouri pavement catapulted phrases like black lives matter, rest in power, and stay woke to a national stage.
  13. ^ "What does woke mean?". Dictionary.com. June 29, 2018. Retrieved April 3, 2020. Especially under the hashtag '#staywoke' on social media, woke took off in 2014 with the Black Lives Matter movement, ignited by the tragic shooting of two other young, unarmed black men by police officers. Among activists, woke and stay woke were cries not just to be aware of racial injustice, but to organize and mobilize to do something about it.
  14. ^ Madden, Sidney (July 24, 2018). "Black Thought Pays Tribute To Trayvon Martin And Calls For Change". NPR. Retrieved April 3, 2020.
  15. ^ Parry, Katy (2019). "#MoreInCommon: Collective Mourning Practices on Twitter and the Iconization of Jo Cox". Visual Political Communication. Springer International Publishing. pp. 227–245. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-18729-3_12. ISBN 978-3-030-18728-6.
  16. ^ Coghill, Arianna (September 14, 2022). "People are telling the queen to "rest in power." Let's not do that". Mother Jones. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
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