On this day, 6 July 1992, Black trans activist and sex worker Marsha P Johnson’s body was found in the Hudson River. She is most famous for participating in the Stonewall rebellion, which sparked a global movement for LGBT+ liberation, but she also spent years doing radical organising on the ground.
Johnson took part in the Gay Liberation Front and the demonstration on the anniversary of the beginning of the Stonewall riots which became Pride. She then co-founded Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries with her friend Sylvia Rivera, a radical grouping which also provided housing and support for gay, gender nonconforming and trans youth. Later she threw herself into AIDS activism, becoming an organiser in ACT UP. All the while Johnson engaged in survival sex work and was constantly harassed by police, being arrested over 100 times.
After her body was discovered, police ruled her death a suicide, despite her having a massive head wound. Friends and activists insisted that Johnson wasn’t suicidal, and highlighted evidence that she may have been murdered. Eventually in late 2012 the NYPD reopened the case as a possible homicide.
We tell the story of the Stonewall rebellion and the GLF in our podcast episodes 25-26 where we speak to participants: https://workingclasshistory.com/2019/05/13/e21-22-the-stonewall-riots-and-pride-at-50/https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1754712351380574/?type=3
ALT
