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Marsha P. Johnson

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Marsha P. Johnson
Born
Malcolm Michaels[1]

(1945-08-24)August 24, 1945[1][2]
Elizabeth, New Jersey, U.S.
DiedJuly 6, 1992(1992-07-06) (aged 46)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation(s)gay rights activist, trans rights activist, performer

Marsha P. Johnson (August 24, 1945[1][2] – July 6, 1992) was an African American gay liberation[3][4] activist. Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Johnson moved to Greenwich Village where she began to live her life as a "street transvestite."[3] Johnson has been outspoken about her advocacy for gay rights, and was widely believed to be one of the prominent figures at the Stonewall riots in 1969.[3] Johnson was one of the co-founders of S.T.A.R. (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), thus she is also considered today by some activists as an inspiration to the modern transgender rights movement.[5] She became a popular figure in New York City's gay and art scene and was hailed "the saint of Christopher Street", the site of Stonewall.[3][6] In the last years of her life, Johnson became an AIDS activist with ACT UP.[3]

Biography

Early life

Johnson was born Malcolm Michaels[1] on August 24, 1945 at St. Elizabeth Hospital[1] in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She was raised by a single mother, alongside an older sister, Norma. Johnson was brought up in a Roman Catholic church and remained religious her entire life, stating that she "got married to Jesus... he takes me seriously" and that she talked to him all the time.[3] Johnson stated in a 1992 interview that she first began wearing dresses at the age of five but stopped because "boys next door would try and get fresh with me" and describes being raped as a child.[3] Johnson in her late teens told her mother she was gay and her mother responded that she was "lower than a dog".[3] After graduating from high school in 1963, Johnson moved to Greenwich Village in New York City where she at first worked at a restaurant until she began to pursue a new life as "the biggest drag queen in the world".[3] Johnson stated she never "did drag seriously" because she "didn't have money to do serious drag", stating she'd always get her clothes from the thrift shop, and was known to add flowers all over her head; Johnson often designed most of her outfits.[3] Johnson began hustling in the streets of both New York City and New Jersey to make ends meet.[3] Johnson lived on the streets of Greenwich Village by 1966.

Johnson chose Marsha P. Johnson as her "drag queen name"[7] because everybody used to call her "Michelle", and she claimed, "I was an little boy and I didn't think that was a nice name for a boy. That [42nd Street]'s where I got the name 'Johnson' from Howard Johnson's restaurant." [3] The "P" in her name stood simply for "pay it no mind", as recalled by Bob Kohler, one of her fellow friends and fellow activists in the gay movement, who was bailing her out of jail, when the judge in Johnson's case asked her what the "p" stood for, Johnson snapped her finger and said "pay it no mind". Humored by the response, the judge agreed and let her go.[3] Johnson would also use the saying sarcastically when questioned about her actual gender.[8]

Johnson began frequenting the Stonewall bar after they began allowing "women and drag queens" in.[9] Johnson claimed she was one of the "Stonewall Girls".[3]

Stonewall uprising and social actions

On the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the Stonewall uprising occurred. Many identify Johnson as being one of the first to fight back in the clashes with the police during the uprising.[10][11] Though Johnson is cited by some as having "started" the rebellion, Johnson herself disputed the account in 1987, stating she had arrived at around "2 in the morning", stating "the riots had already started" when she arrived and that the Stonewall building "was on fire" after cops set it on fire.[9] According to David Carter, in the book, Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Revolution, it was stated Johnson "climbed on top of a lamppost" and dropped a heavy object into the windshield of a police car.[10] Carter listed Johnson alongside Jackie Hormona and Zazu Nova as being the "three individuals known to have been in the vanguard" of the escalation of the Stonewall uprising.[10]

Marsha P. Johnson, Joseph Ratanski and Sylvia Rivera in 1973 by Gary LeGault

Following the Stonewall uprising, Johnson joined both the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance and participated in the first Christopher Street Liberation Pride rally on the first-year anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion in June 1970. The following year, she and close friend Sylvia Rivera co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) organization and the two of them were a visible presence at gay liberation marches and other radical political actions.[3] In 1973, Johnson and Rivera were banned from participating in the gay pride parade by the gay and lesbian committee who were administering the event stating they "weren't gonna allow drag queens" at their marches claiming they were "given them a bad name"[3]. Their response was to march defiantly ahead of the parade.[12][3] During one LGBT rally in the early '70s, a reporter asked her why she was there and Johnson shouted to the microphone, "Darling, I want my gay rights now!"[3]

With Rivera, Johnson established the S.T.A.R. house, the first shelter for trans and gay youth in 1972, and paid the rent for it with money they made themselves as sex workers. [13] Marsha was a "drag mother" of STAR House, getting together food and clothing to help support the young drag queens, trans women and other gay street kids living on the Christopher Street docks or in their house on the Lower East Side of New York.[14] The S.T.A.R. House was short-lived but became a legendary model for future generations.

In 1975, Marsha P. Johnson was photographed by famed artist Andy Warhol, as part of a "Ladies and Gentlemen" series of Polaroids.[11] Johnson was also a member of J. Camicias' international, NYC-based, GLBT performance troupe, Hot Peaches (which has been compared to the similar, San Francisco troupe, The Cockettes).[15][16]

In the 1980s Johnson continued her street activism as a respected organizer and marshal with ACT UP.

Gender identity and health

Johnson used an array of language to express her gender identity, describing herself as a "street transvestite", a "boy" and stating "When I became a drag queen, I started to live my live as a woman."[3] She is documented using the words "homosexual" and "gay" to describe her sexual orientation. In the documentary, Pay It No Mind: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson, some people interviewed described her as a "drag queen", while columnist Michael Musto, in talking of Johnson's portrayal in Warhol's series, called Johnson a "transgender version of the Campbell's Soup, but much prettier".[3]

Describing moments when she was threatened by clients who had discovered she was not a woman, she stated, "Some people couldn't believe I wasn't a real woman. Honey, I was just a transvestite ... There was just once in a while, I would run into this lunatic who actually have in his mind that I was a woman. And I mean, I'd tell him I was a boy and he just wouldn't you know, just wouldn't believe until he'd seen down my pants and everything, another day, another illusion."[3] Johnson had a bullet lodged in her spine from an assault by one client, [3] and claimed she had lived "nine lives" because she had survived so many knife and gun assaults.[17] In 1972, she is documented discussing transition and hormonal treatments[18]. Randy Wicker, Johnson's best friend and roommate for over a decade, refers to Johnson as "transgender" in a 2009 interview[19]. Johnson is not documented using the word "transgender" to describe herself.

Johnson's sister is filmed in an interview by Randy Wicker repeatedly referring to Johnson as "Mikey", and recalling that while one neighbor spouted a homophobic slur at Johnson, others in the neighborhood were amused by her. She reminisced that Johnson would return to the New Jersey neighborhood to visit "in a shirt and pants".[20]

Johnson spoke of having her first nervous breakdown in 1970.[3] Though generally regarded as "generous and warmhearted" under her Marsha persona, Johnson's dark side sometimes emerged "under her male persona as Malcolm", often resulting in her being hospitalized and sedated.[10] The dual personality has been described as "a schizophrenic personality at work".[10] A 1979 Village Voice article titled "The Drag of Politics" by Steven Watson reported that Johnson's saintly personality was "volatile" and listed a roster of gay bars from which she had been banned.[10] On April 17, 1987, Johnson was sent to the mental ward of St. Mary's Hospital after falsely pulling the fire alarm and vandalizing Wicker's apartment building in Hoboken, claiming that "God told [her] to do it." [21] Johnson was said to be in a "fragile" state at the time of her death in 1992, according to Wicker.[3]

Death

On June 30, 1992, shortly after the 1992 Pride March, Johnson was reported missing.[3] Six days later, on July 6, Johnson's body was found floating in the Hudson River off the West Village Piers; Johnson was 46.[3] While police initially ruled the death a suicide,[11] Johnson's friends and other members of the local community insisted Johnson was not suicidal and noted that the back of Johnson's head had a massive wound.[22][23]

Several people came forward to say they had seen Johnson harassed by a group of "thugs" who had also robbed people.[22][23] According to Randy Wicker, a witness saw someone engaging in a fight with Johnson days prior to her death calling her a homophobic slur in the process and later bragged to someone that he "had killed a drag queen named Marsha" at a bar.[6] Despite a people's postering campaign and vigils at the site where Johnson's body had been found, initial attempts to get the police to investigate the cause of death were unsuccessful.[3] In November 2012, activist Mariah Lopez finally succeeded in getting the New York police department to reopen the case as a possible homicide.[6]

Johnson was cremated and her ashes spread over the same river where her body was found as a special memorial by her friends.[3]

Tributes

Only ten days before her death, Johnson gave an extensive, filmed interview which forms the core of the 2012 documentary, Pay it No Mind: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson, directed by Michael Kasino and Richard Morrison.[3] Also interviewed are many of Johnson's closest friends. Johnson is honored by them as saintly, as a deeply spiritual person who attended every church and temple, who gave away what little she had to help others on the streets, and who made Santeria-influenced offerings to the spirits of the waters that surround and run through New York City.[3] Agosto Machado, performer and friend of Johnson's, refers to her as a "bodhisattva"[3]. She is honored as an LGBT rights pioneer, a veteran activist, and a survivor.[3]

New York City baroque pop band Antony and the Johnsons (led by Anohni) was named in Johnson's honor,[14] and their eponymous 1998 album features a song called "River of Sorrow," which is inspired by Johnson's life and passing. The song is featured in the Pay it No Mind documentary.[3] In 1993 Anohni appeared in a play about Johnson and International Chrysis by the Hot Peaches,[16] the same theater group with whom Johnson had performed. Anohni also wrote and directed a play about Johnson, "The Ascension of Marsha P. Johnson" at the Pyramid Club in 1994 and at PS122 in NYC in 1995.[24]

American drag queen and TV personality RuPaul names Johnson as an inspiration and describes Johnson as "the true Drag Mother". [8] During an episode of his show RuPaul's Drag Race in 2012, RuPaul told her contestants that Johnson "paved the way for all of [them]".[25]

A character based on Johnson appears in the film, Stonewall,[26] a drama inspired by the Stonewall riots. She is played by Otoja Abit.

Happy Birthday, Marsha!, directed by Reina Gossett and Sasha Wortzel, is a short, experimental film about Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, set in the hours before the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City, in which Johnson is portrayed by Independent Spirit Award-winning transgender actress Mya Taylor.

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, directed by David France, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2017 and later found a buyer in Netflix.[27][28] The documentary re-examines Johnson's untimely death and celebrates the contributions of Johnson and Sylvia Rivera to the modern LGBTQ rights movement.[29]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Scan of Birth Certificate. Accessed Sep 10, 2015
  2. ^ a b U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936–2007, Death, Burial, Cemetery & Obituaries: "Michaels, Malcolm Jr [Malcolm Mike Michaels Jr], [M Michae Jr], [Malculm Jr]. SSN: 147346493. Gender: Male. Race: Black. Birth Date: 24 Aug 1945. Birth Place: Elizabeth, Union, New Jersey [Elizabeth, New Jersey]. Death Date: Jul 1992. Database on-line. Provo, UT, US: Ancestry.com"
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag Kasino, Michael (2012) "Pay It No Mind - The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson".
  4. ^ I've been involved in gay liberation ever since it first started in 1969, 15:20 into the interview, she is quoted as saying this.
  5. ^ Giffney, Noreen (December 28, 2012). Queering the Non/Human. p. 252. Retrieved July 9, 2017.
  6. ^ a b c Jacobs, Shayna (2012-12-16). "DA reopens unsolved 1992 case involving the 'saint of gay life'". New York Daily News. Retrieved 2015-06-15.
  7. ^ I used Marsha P. Johnson as a drag queen name because everybody used to call me "Michelle", she says this at around 37:24 of the interview
  8. ^ a b "#LGBTQ: Doc Film, "The Death & Life of Marsha P. Johnson" Debuts At Tribeca Film Fest - The WOW Report". Retrieved July 9, 2017.
  9. ^ a b "Making Gay History: Episode 11 - Johnson & Wicker". 1987. Retrieved July 6, 2017.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Carter, David (2004). Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution. St. Martin's. ISBN 0-312-20025-0.
  11. ^ a b c Feinberg, Leslie (1996). Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman. Boston: Beacon Press. p. 131. ISBN 0-8070-7941-3.
  12. ^ Wicker, Randy (2014) "Marsha P Johnson Carols for Ma & Pa Xmas Presents" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SDEcv6QtCI
  13. ^ "Rapping With a Street Transvestite Revolutionary" in Out of the closets : voices of gay liberation. Douglas, c1972
  14. ^ a b "Marsha P. Johnson (1944 - 1992) Activist, Drag Mother." A Gender Variance Who's Who. May 2, 2009. Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
  15. ^ "Feature Doc 'Pay It No Mind: The Life & Times of Marsha P. Johnson' Released Online. Watch It". Indiewire. December 26, 2012. Retrieved February 11, 2015. 27:15
  16. ^ a b NYC's Hot Peaches website. Accessed 23 Jan 2016.
  17. ^ "Rapping With a Street Transvestite Revolutionary" in Out of the closets : voices of gay liberation. Douglas, c1972
  18. ^ "Rapping With a Street Transvestite Revolutionary" in Out of the closets : voices of gay liberation. Douglas, c1972. p. 112.
  19. ^ Randolfe Wicker - 05-21-09 Air date. May 21, 2009. Event occurs at 49:12. Retrieved July 7, 2017.
  20. ^ MARSHA'S SIS FAGGOT STORY. Retrieved July 7, 2017.
  21. ^ "Randy Wicker talks of Marsha's incident and arrest". Retrieved July 8, 2017.
  22. ^ a b Wicker, Randolfe (1992) "Bennie Toney 1992". Accessed July 26, 2015.
  23. ^ a b Wicker, Randolfe (1992) "Marsha P Johnson - People's Memorial". Accessed July 26, 2015.
  24. ^ Blacklips Performance Cult Chronology of Plays. Accessed 23 Jan 2016.
  25. ^ Tungol, JR (October 15, 2012). "LGBT History Month Icon Of The Day: Marsha P. Johnson". Huffington Post. Retrieved July 9, 2017.
  26. ^ Stonewall Clip "Marsha P. Johnson" In Theaters September 25, 2015, RoadsideFlix, YouTube. Accessed Sep 10, 2015.
  27. ^ Schager, Nick, "Tribeca Film Review: 'The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson'" for Variety. Accessed 16 May 2017.
  28. ^ McNary, Dave (2017-06-02). "Netflix Buys Documentary 'The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson'". Variety. Retrieved 2017-06-02.
  29. ^ The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson official website for film
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