There she is, the lady in red.
You're on TV Marsha.
(mysterious music)
I think the story of Marsha P. Johnson
should be taught in schools.
Everybody loved her.
I always say, tomorrow's not promised to me.
This is the Stonewall Inn.
On a hot summer night, in 1969,
police raided this well known gay bar.
As they had many times before.
But, this time, things were different.
The customers fought back.
It launched a national movement for LGBTQ rights.
Many believed that the powder keg exploded
when a trans woman, named Marsha P. Johnson,
picked up a shot glass and threw it,
shattering the mirror behind the bar.
It wasn't Johnson's first feat of activism,
nor would it be her last.
But, decades later when she was found dead,
it was up to others to advocate to get her justice.
For InsideEdition.com, I'm Sal Bono.
And, this is New York Gritty.
(groovy music)
The city was totally different.
And, it was kinda wild.
This is me.
Kind of dangerous also, especially if you were gay.
Because there was a lot of prejudice during that time.
Somebody had to take you to a gay bar,
'cause then it was against the law to serve
a homosexual alcohol if they'd known.
And, the windows were painted, everything was dark black.
Had to knock on the doors.
If you ever noticed there were mirrors in bars.
If you sat at a gay bar, you could not turn around,
you hadda talk to the person behind you through a mirror.
We couldn't sit the way we're sitting now.
We hadda sit this way.
Because they wanted to make sure if the cops came
that didn't make anything look suspicious.
(siren blaring)
People did what they had to do.
You walked down a police car and says, hey.
You walk over to them, they says,
you wanna see my nightstick?
I says, no, you wanna see mine?
What are you a wiseguy?
The atmosphere during that time
was the atmosphere of change.
People were tired of what was happening,
there was the war, there was also Kennedy assassination.
There was Martin Luther King assassination,
Robert F. Kennedy.
Richard Nixon was president.
There was the landing on the moon.
It was a very exciting time and era.
But also, as far as the justice system,
and the rights of people,
people were demanding their rights.
On the forefront of the movement
was Marsha P. Johnson, a trans woman from New Jersey.
When asked what the P stood for,
Marsha said, pay it no mind.
I don't know if that was her way of saying,
don't ask me what it stands for,
or that was what it stood for.
But, it's a great answer.
Did you love that?
She made a living as a sex worker and panhandler.
She got by with the help of her friends,
like Randy Wicker, with whom she lived.
You'd be surprised how many gorgeous clothes
Randy got around here for me that I don't even wear.
So, Marsha came in that night, slept on the floor,
and was here for the next 12 years.
Tomorrow morning I'll give you the grampa's cheek
when I'm fixing breakfast for ya.
Yes, yes, yes.
She was a great educator.
Because I was a transphobic.
I had no understanding of gender identity.
And, I don't think most other people did either.
There's always been discrimination
within the queer community, and in the 60s especially.
A lot of the white gay men looked down on
people of color, the gay males sometimes
looked down on drag and trans.
Marsha and Sylvia Rivera, her fellow compatriot,
actually were told not to march in the gay pride parade,
because the gays didn't want drag queens.
They thought they were bad for the image of the community.
Can you imagine?
This was way before Drag Race.
But, friends say, Marsha couldn't stand
to see anyone suffer alone.
She took it upon herself to advocate for her community.
With her close friend Sylvia Rivera usually by her side.
What happened to the trans people?
They didn't want them marching in the parade.
So, they sent us to the back.
Where we said, no.
And, we went right through the parade,
and just mixed in with the whole crowd,
because we would not take backseat.
I think as Marsha P. Johnson
as the Rosa Parks of this movement.
And, Sylvia as the mother of this movement.
Sylvia and Marsha met, I think it was the age of 13,
when Sylvia was a street person.
And, Marsha took hold of her and nurtured her.
There was a love affair of activism,
there was a love affair of wanting to do for the community
that had not been done before.
On June 28th, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn.
During previous raids, customers may have
put their hands in the air, or tried to run away.
That night was different.
That same night Judy Garland had been buried.
People were down.
The weather was really hot.
And, the air was kinda stifling, but yet it was calm.
It was like the calm before the storm.
(dramatic music)
During the riots, protestors congregated here
in this nearby park, picking up rocks, bricks,
whatever they could, throwing them at police
and demanding their civil rights.
We broke the windows, threw them garbage cans
through the open windows.
I thought it was over that day.
I figured that's it,
we'll still get raided in bars and everything.
You know, who knew.
At one point, the glass behind the bar shattered.
And, rumor had it that Marsha was the one
who broke it with a shot glass.
While screaming, I want my civil rights.
Marsha was there, but despite being part of
the Stonewall folklore, no one can really
back up that account.
And, Marsha said, well I didn't get to Stonewall
til the fire was going.
It was already going.
She was here throwing things.
I don't know if she threw the first shot glass
or a brick, 'cause I don't think a shot glass
would break that window either.
We heard it, 'cause that started everybody
breaking windows, but I don't know who really threw it.
If it was Marsha, thank you.
Have a good day.
She was giving, and warm,
and had a personality you couldn't ignore.
But, the streets took their toll on Marsha.
She contracted HIV, suffered from mental illness,
and even survived being shot, allegedly by a cab driver
who didn't want to pay her for sex work.
Marsha had been through so much.
And, she was fearless as a result of it.
Not only did she have a bullet in her spine,
I mean, she had done survival sex work.
That's rough.
At that point, to be a drag queen doing survival sex work,
you're dealing with some very rough patrons,
you're dealing with cops.
You have to get a very tough skin, and she did.
The Stonewall Uprising led to the gay liberation movement,
which fought for civil rights, like marriage equality,
and laws preventing discrimination.
Unfortunately, Marsha P. Johnson
never got a chance to see any of this.
In July of 1992, her body was found
floating in the Hudson River,
here near the Christoper Street Pier.
To me it was like a shock.
I says, who would kill Marsha?
It's very sad that a person so giving
had to meet her death like that.
Because she was very giving,
and she was like, everybody loved her.
Everybody loved her.
As comical as she was, as generous as she was,
as giving as she was, she was still a human being.
But, her death wasn't investigated as a murder.
Police quickly closed the case,
and said Marsha died as a result of suicide by drowning.
Those who knew her refused to accept that.
She did face mental challenges,
but she was not in a suicidal mood at this time.
She had however been harassed by people.
She also apparently had a big bruise on the back of her head
when her body was found.
She couldn't have self-inflicted that.
Very hard to do that.
So, people started thinking there was more to the story,
and that maybe the cops just wanted to brush this off
because this is an African American, queer,
person with HIV, why should they care?
(mysterious music)
In the early 1990s, New York City was trying
to break the powerful grip of a crack epidemic.
Police were under pressure to reduce crime,
including the more than 1,000 murders
that were reported every year.
That was a campaign button for Marsha.
But, it was intense public pressure
from Marsha's friends, and political pressure
from a city councilman at the time,
that got her case reexamined later in 1992.
Investigators ended up changing the manner of her death
from suicide to undetermined.
Marsha would not commit suicide.
Her and Sylvia wanted to get together
and do something again.
Building up shelters, and building up the community.
Brand new scarf.
Maybe I should wear blue tonight.
At the same time, they weren't very helpful at all
with the case, not even the coroners.
We only got the first page of the coroner's report.
And, the front page, not the back page.
And, at the same time, possible homicide was circled.
As far as getting information from the NYPD,
it's like running into the blue wall.
And the most horrible show I've seen
was last week, To Catch a Criminal.
Honey, this man killed 40 gay people,
had 'em buried in the basement.
And, it took them to catch 40 people.
He killed 40 people before they even caught him.
Yeah, what do they care.
I said, darling, if you're straight,
you only gotta kill one and they catch you.
When you're gay it just takes forever.
I mean, I think they, no I don't think
they'd do a good investigation on a gay murder.
The NYPD reopened the case in 2012,
after renewed public pressure.
But, concluded their investigation a year later
without changing their conclusion from 1992.
But, Marsha's friends say, they believe
there would be more answers today
if a more thorough investigation had been conducted
at the time of her death.
I feel it should've immediately been
classified as a potential homicide,
and investigated as such.
20 years were lost, of evidence gone,
and hard to really get a concrete idea
of what actually happened.
(electronic music)
One of the biggest events that Marsha P. Johnson missed
was in 2016 when the Stonewall Inn
became a national landmark.
President Obama even mentioned the 1969 uprising
during his 2013 inauguration speech.
We the people, declare today
that the most evident of truths,
that all of us are created equal,
is the star that guides us still.
Just as it guided our fore bearers
through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.
When I heard Stonewall in his speech
I fell off my couch.
We were so proud.
And now, people from city, state,
or country, they're coming in.
And then, they put a gay flag across the street,
which is the first time a gay flag has ever flown
over a national monument in the history of America.
What do you think Marsha would say
about Obama naming it a national landmark?
She'd say one of my people did the right thing.
She would do that, because she was that way.
Those who knew Marsha P. Johnson say,
she left a legacy that can be seen in the advancements
the LGBTQ community has made since the 1960s.
I don't believe in any particular organized religion.
But, I do believe that Marsha P. Johnson
is the only living saint I've ever met in my life.
I think the story of Marsha P. Johnson
should be taught in schools.
I think people need to know about queer icons.
They need to know about people before
there was a Drag Race, and before there were
17 gay bars in Hell's Kitchen.
Back when you couldn't even hold hands on the street
without getting busted by the cops.
And, there was somebody named Marsha P. Johnson
who was a trailblazer, and made a difference.
(calm music)