No justice, no peace

Graffiti during the 1992 Los Angeles riots after the acquittal of white police officers in the beating of Rodney King

The French translation of the phrase in Paris in June 2020 in response to the deaths of Adama Traoré and George Floyd at the hands of police

Linguist Ben Zimmer writes that use of the slogan "No justice, no peace" during protests goes back as far as the 1986 murder of Michael Griffith.[1] Griffith, a Trinidadian immigrant, and three friends, all black, were assaulted by a mob of white youth in the Howard Beach, Queens, New York City. Griffith fled the attackers onto a nearby highway, where he was fatally struck by a passing car.[2] In 2014, Al Sharpton recounted: "In the midst of the protest, someone yelled the slogan, 'No justice, no peace'. Others began doing the same, and from then on I adopted it as a rallying cry each and every time a grave miscarriage of justice has befallen the disenfranchised."[3]

Other sources suggest that the phrase was actually popularized by activist Robert "Sonny" Carson, who is quoted on February 12, 1987 as stating, "'No justice! No peace!' Carson shouted. 'No peace for all of you who dare kill our children if they come into your neighborhood...We are going to make one long, hot summer out here...get ready for a new black in this city!," while the New York Times reported on July 6, 1987: "'No justice, no peace,' said Mr. Carson repeatedly in what he said he hopes will emerge as the rallying cry for his cause."[4] Carson appears to have used the phrase conditionally.[5] Zimmer writes that "in the '80s and '90s,... 'No justice, no peace' was unequivocally understood as conditional, not conjunctive."[1]

Similar phrases go at least as far back as the Virginia ratification debates, where Gov. Randolph said the following in support of ratifying the constitution:

We are told that the report of dangers is false. The cry of peace, sir, is false...Where there are so many witnesses in many parts of America, that justice is suffocated, shall peace and happiness still be said to reign?...A man, who was then a citizen, was deprived of his life thus: from a mere reliance on general reports...There is no peace, sir, in this land. Can peace exist with injustice, licentiousness, insecurity, and oppression?

The slogan was heard during the 1992 Los Angeles riots,[6][7] and in 1998, activist lawyer Ron Kuby testified before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Criminal Justice:

In response to the increase of hate crimes by both the police and private citizens, a new civil rights movement has started to emerge in New York. The movement is broad and diverse, but has marched under the slogan "No Justice, No Peace," a slogan which summarizes the frustration and anger of New York's Black and Latino communities. "No Justice, No Peace" remains the solemn promise of an increasing number of people in an increasingly polarized city.[1]

The meaning of "no justice, no peace" may change between conditional and conjunctive depending on the speaker.[1] After the acquittal in the Trayvon Martin murder case, the chaplain of the University of Pennsylvania elucidated the meanings that the phrase meant to him: "A lack of justice has resulted in a lack of peace", "Heavy hearts now lack peace because of the lack of justice in our nation", and "No peace because of no justice."[8] Al Sharpton similarly asserts, "let's be clear: 'No justice, no peace' is a peaceful mechanism by which we raise our discontent. And it is a way to expose inequality that would otherwise be ignored."[3] In contrast, Glen Ford asserted after the 2014 shooting of Tamir Rice,

More than just a threat against Power, the slogan brings clarity of purpose to the participants in the movement. If the existing structures of governance and social organization cannot possibly provide justice for Black people, then those structures must be pushed aside – or there will be no civil peace.[9]

Black Lives Matter protest in Tucson, Arizona in July 2016

There is disagreement on the type of statement meant by "No justice, no peace." One option is that it is a conjunctive statement which is stating the belief that neither of the two states of peace or justice can exist without the existence of the other.[5] A similar phrase was used by Martin Luther King, Jr. on December 14, 1967 when he visited Santa Rita Jail in California, where protesters against the Vietnam War were imprisoned. There, he drew an explicit parallel with the Vietnam War Peace Movement and the Civil Rights Movement. This form is explicitly conjunctive.[5]

"I might say that I see these two struggles as one struggle. There can be no justice without peace. And there can be no peace without justice."[12]

Within the context of international industrial relations, an older form of "No justice, no peace" has been in use in the early twentieth century. In 1923, the International Labour Office started the construction of its first building in Geneva (currently the Centre William Rappard). A document placed beneath one of the cornerstones read: "Si vis pacem, cole justitiam" - If you desire peace, cultivate justice (referring specifically to social justice).[13]

Another interpretation renders the slogan as a conditional statement, or "if-then" statement, in which the speaker is saying that if there is no justice, then they will not allow others to be at peace.[5] The speaker may mean that they will raise awareness of conditions that the listener would prefer to ignore, or they may mean that they will disrupt society until it is cost-effective for leaders to fix the condition.

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