Marsha P. Johnson

Activist

• Born: August 24, 1944
• Birthplace: Elizabeth, New Jersey
• Died: July 6, 1992
• Place of death: New York, New York

Also known as: Black Marsha; Malcolm Michaels Jr.

Significance: Marsha P. Johnson was a gay liberation activist and drag queen who was present at the Stonewall uprising in 1969, the event that launched the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.

Background

Marsha P. Johnson was born Malcolm Michaels Jr. on August 24, 1944, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She was the fifth of seven children. Johnson’s mother, Alberta, worked as a housekeeper, and her father, Malcolm Michaels Sr., was an assembly-line worker at a General Motors factory in nearby Linden, New Jersey. When Johnson was about five years old, she began wearing dresses for the first time but soon stopped because of the bullying she faced from other children. The Johnson family was religious and attended Mount Teman African Methodist Episcopal Church in Elizabeth. Johnson remained religious for the rest of her life, showing interest in various faiths, particularly Catholicism.

In 1963, Johnson graduated from Thomas A. Edison High School in Elizabeth and moved to New York City, carrying only a bag of clothing and a few dollars. There, Johnson became a sex worker, and on numerous occasions was arrested for prostitution. During this time, Johnson also created for herself a persona named Black Marsha; she would variously go by that name, her male birth name, and Marsha P. Johnson. Johnson often quipped that the “P” stood for “pay it no mind,” which was her response when asked about her gender. She also said she took her last name from the Howard Johnson chain of restaurants.

Johnson’s preference for adopting different monikers raises the question of Johnson’s gender identity and gender expression. Johnson is claimed by the LGBTQ+ community as a whole—and by transgender activists in particular—but some experts believe Johnson would today likely be considered “gender nonconforming,” a term that did not exist when Johnson was alive.

Stonewall Uprising and Activism Career

On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan. Johnson’s precise involvement in the uprising was the source of some dispute for many years, but Johnson herself explained in a 1989 interview that she had been at a party uptown and did not arrive at the bar until around two o’clock in the morning. Upon arriving at the scene, Johnson said, the Stonewall Inn was already on fire. Once she arrived, she joined the fracas and pushed back against the police. At one point, she stood on top of a police car and dropped a brick on it, causing the windshield to break. (This story may have been misconstrued as the often-told tale that Johnson was the person who threw the first brick at police.)

In the years following Stonewall, Johnson took a leading role in the nascent gay rights movement. She participated in the first gay pride parades and became part of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), an activist organization that worked to combat homophobia and antigay laws. In 1970, Johnson and transgender activist Sylvia Rivera founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), which supported homeless transgender youth by giving them food, clothing, and shelter. Johnson’s interest in drag also emerged in the 1970s, and Johnson cut a distinctive figure in brightly colored wigs adorned with artificial fruit or plastic flowers. In 1972, she performed as part of the drag performance group Hot Peaches. Johnson’s unique style caught the attention of artist Andy Warhol, who included her in Ladies and Gentlemen, his 1975 collection of photographs and other images of transgender people and drag queens.

Johnson struggled with mental illness throughout her life. In 1970, Johnson had the first of a series of mental breakdowns and spent time in various psychiatric institutions. Her mental health issues did not slow her visibility or her activism, however. In 1980, she rode at the head of the Gay Pride Parade in New York. When the AIDS crisis came to light in the early 1980s, Johnson became involved with ACT UP, an organization that staged protests and sit-ins to raise awareness about the disease. In 1992, Johnson revealed that she herself had been diagnosed two years earlier with HIV, the virus that can lead to AIDS.

On July 6, 1992, Johnson’s body was found floating in the Hudson River on the west side of Manhattan. The New York City medical examiner ruled her death officially a suicide. Her friends disputed this judgement, however, asserting that Johnson had been assaulted and killed by a harasser or had fallen into the river by accident. Later that year, city authorities changed her cause of death to “undetermined.” In 2012, the matter of Johnson’s death was reopened by the Manhattan District Attorney.

Impact

Though she did not receive much recognition during her lifetime, Johnson’s story gained attention during the early 2000s, and she is remembered today as a key figure in the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement. Her participation in the Stonewall uprising, advocacy for transgender people, and AIDS activism, all secured her an important place in the history of the movement. Johnson was memorialized numerous times during the twenty-first century. In 2012, a documentary about Johnson’s life titled Pay It No Mind: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson was released. Another documentary film, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, investigated the mystery of Johnson’s death and was released on Netflix in 2017.

In 2016, the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, an organization that advocates for Black transgender women, was founded. Johnson was one of the first fifty names listed on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor, which was unveiled at the Stonewall Inn in 2019. That year, New York City announced that a separate monument honoring Johnson and Rivera would be erected near the Stonewall Inn. On January 30, 2020, New York governor Andrew Cuomo revealed that the East River Park in Brooklyn, would be renamed for Johnson. In August 2020, Johnson’s hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey, announced it would also dedicate a monument to Johnson.

Personal Life

In 1980, Johnson moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, into the home of Randy Wicker, a gay activist. Wicker’s partner, David Combs, had AIDS, and Johnson served as Combs’s caregiver until his death from the disease in 1990.

Bibliography

Carter, David. Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010.

Chan, Sewell. “Marsha P. Johnson.” The New York Times, 8 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/obituaries/overlooked-marsha-p-johnson.html. Accessed 15 May 2021.

Devaney, Susan. “Marsha P Johnson’s Activism Matters Now More Than Ever.” Vogue, 6 June 2020, www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/who-was-marsha-p-johnson. Accessed 15 May 2021. Accessed 15 May 2021.

Ryan, Hugh. “Power to the People.” Out, vol. 26, no. 2, 2017, pp.56–61. LGBTQ+ Source, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=qth&AN=124463421&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed 25 June 2021.

Washington, KC. “Marsha P. Johnson (1945–1992).” BlackPast, 9 Apr. 2019, www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/marsha-p-johnson-1945-1992/. Accessed 15 May 2021.