AfroDiaspores

Marsha P. Johnson (1944-1992) at a Gay Liberation Front meeting, ca. 1970. PHOTO by DIANA JO DAVIES. Johnson was “a revolutionary trans activist, Stonewall instigator, Andy Warhol model, drag queen, prostitute, and Saint, as well as a downtown NYC fixture from the 1960’s through her too-soon demise in 1992. Johnson persevered through a life embodied by her middle initial P, which stood for ‘Pay It No Mind.’” She is now the subject of a documentary that takes this phrase as its title.

Marsha P. Johnson, who was a transgender[ ] activist present at the Stonewall riots, was also a founding member of an organization that could only have been started in the 1970s - S.T.A.R. - Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries…Marsha was about as sweet as they come, a fixture on the mean streets who was always ready with a smile…I wanted to share this forgotten gem of a poem [composed by Jimmy Centola, formerly of the Hot Peaches theater troupe] that tells the history of Stonewall and of what happened to the gay movement by the late 70s in Marsha’s voice.