Rest in power

[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.

[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.

[11] 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.

[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] "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.