Credit: Leonard Fink, courtesy LGBT Community Center National History Archive.
Johnson (left) and Sylvia Rivera (right), co-founders of the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) at the Christopher Street Liberation Day Gay Pride Parade, New York City, June 24, 1973. Marsha and Sylvia envisioned STAR House as a refuge for homeless LGBTQ youth.
This excerpt was posted by activist, writer, and filmmaker Reina Gossett. Read a 1970s interview with Marsha about STAR House, which she co-founded with Sylvia Rivera (featured in MGH Episode 01 ) in an excerpt from Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation by Karla Kay and Allen Young. Despite a lifelong struggle with mental illness, homelessness, prostitution, and dozens of arrests, Marsha became a beloved figure in the LGBTQ civil rights movement beginning at the Stonewall uprising in 1969 and continuing through the 1980s with ACT UP.
Johnson was born on Augin Elizabeth, New Jersey. To learn more about each of them, have a look at the information and resources that follow below. Johnson and Randy Wicker took dramatically different approaches to activism, but each left an indelible mark on the LGBTQ civil rights movement.
