New York, a statue for Marsha Johnson, drag queen and LGBTQ activist

They waited for two years for the city administration to erect the statue it promised from 2019. Then, however, New York’s queer activists decided to take matters into their own hands: they have bypassed the bureaucracy and, without any authorization, they placed a bust of Marsha P. Johnson in a park, the same day the activist and drag queen would have turned 76.

Sculpted by queer artist Jesse Pallotta, the bust was opened in Christopher Park, near the historic Stonewall Inn, the place where the 1969 riots that gave birth to the LGBTQ + rights movement began, and of which Johnson was a decisive protagonist.

Founder of the Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries (Star), she has worked tirelessly for helping homeless queer youth. With her friend Sylvia Rivera she opened the Star House, a shelter for gay and transsexual kids, and she paid the rent with the money she earned by prostituting: she wanted to protect young people from the violence she herself had suffered.

“Happy birthday, Marsha! Early this morning, a group of friends and I exhibited this bust of Marsha P Johnson in Christopher Park, ”wrote writer and activist Eli Erlick, who shared photos of the work, on Twitter. “It is the city’s first statue of a trans person and – incredibly – only the eighth statue of a woman over 800 monuments in the parks of New York! ». And again: «You can put flowers on the crown, take pictures with her and celebrate Marsha’s revolutionary activism… I hope this bust will bring a smile to every passerby».

The plaque on the pedestal of the bust carries a quote from Johnson herself: “History is not something that you look back on as something inevitable: it happens because people make decisions that are sometimes impulsive and on the spot, but those moments are realities that accumulate. “. On the plaque, Masha Johnson is described as a lover of poetry, flowers, space and the color purple.