Trans Activist Marsha P. Johnson To Be Honored With Park In NYC

Happy Black History Month. An 11-acre waterfront park? We love to see it!

NBC News Reports

“New York State is the progressive capital of the nation, and while we are winning the legal battle for justice for the LGBTQ community, in many ways we are losing the broader war for equality,” Cuomo said Saturday.

The governor called Johnson an “an icon of the community” and explained that the East River State Park in Brooklyn would be the first in New York to be named after an openly LGBTQ person.

Marsha was one of the key figures in the Stonewall Uprising, when a group of LGBTQ people fought back against a police raid at the Stonewall Inn in 1969.

After Stonewall, Johnson co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with fellow transgender activist Sylvia Rivera. The two led the political organization in finding housing and other forms of support to homeless queer youth and sex workers in Manhattan.

She was recently the subject of The 2017 documentary, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, which follows trans woman Victoria Cruz of the Anti-Violence Project as she investigates Johnson’s suspected murder in 1992.

The city also announced plans to build a statue honoring Johnson and Sylvia Rivera during the 50th anniversary of Stonewall Pride celebration last year.