Cristhoper street Pier, Manhattan NY, 5.23pm on a warm afternoon in July. The whole Greenwich Village was there,standing and shocked in front of a lifeless body founded shore of the Hudson. Marsha haven’t been around for a couple of days. It’s almost weird, because she was always out to help other people like homeless, prostitutes and poors. That body it’s Marsha P. Johnson ’s one,The Greenwich Village’s queen, the police quickly ruled her death a suicide. Drowning. Police closed Marsha P. Johnson’s case.
Infact is NOT.
Why would Marsha have to commit suicide? She dreamed of crossing the Jordan river with her friend Sylvia,always smiling and helping everyone in her neighborhood. Something isn’t clear.
It was 1992, in Italy, a few weeks earlier Capaci left his sign in the history for “the attackers”. Judge Falcone died with his wife and his escort.
But this is a mafia story.
What does the mafia have to do with Marsha P. Johnson? Maybe we need to take a step back and try to know Marsha a.k.a. Malcolm Michaels.
Marsha P. Johnson
Malcom Michaels was born in ’45 and in the ‘60s, in New York, someone like him has serious issues with society, for two reasons: he is black and he is gay.
Not just about this reason, but Malcom is provocative, not rebel, but annoying for the American respectability of Lyndon B. Johnson, the next elected successor of JFK.
Racist repressions against social minorities are harsh and the first movements that claim human rights are born, such as black panthers in California.
For cops, there’s a lot to do on New Yorks’s streets, because now gays are also protesting. Many blitz in men-only club, such as the Stonewall Inn, is almost routine.
Malcom lives there and those are places where he hang out, since he decided to be Marsha. Marsha “P” Johnson. She goes around wearing make-up, with ostrich boa, feathers, wigs and women’s clothes. Walking around on the Greenwich Village stroll, between Christopher Street and West Road.
June 28, 1969
In 1969 Nixon wins the elections and the fight against minorities is still getting worse. On those nights in New York it rains molotov from the sky and Marsha leaves running from the clubs to escape the police. But for her it’s too hard, too important to defend her rights and those like her. June 28, 1969 is the point of no return.
Yet another attack on the Stonewall Inn and then she reacts, she is beaten, but she reacts. With Sylvia Rivera and the others from the gay community, she overturn cars and blocks traffic. The next day, Gay Power was born.
“Marsha’s mission in life was to preach peace and kindness.” This is how Sylvia, her best friend, replies to anyone who asks about Marsha. Sylvia Rivera is the more serious of the.wo and she laughs like Marlene Dietrich. Together they decide that it’s time to do something seriously. Gay power is now a battle hymn but the persecutions continue.There are many gays under 18 who are runaway or kicked out from their families who don’t accept their nature. And they end up being prostitutes in the street, without a place to stay. They are hidden and at the limits of survival in the dark alleys and Marsha spends the night walking around, giving to them clothes, something to eat,also just a smile.
S.T.A.R.
STAR Project is created for them. The acronym means Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries. It is a success, to the point that Marsha and Sylvia take an entire building in Greenwich Village and open a home for transgender people.The first LGBT center and laboratory in all of North America. A huge milestone, if you think it was the beginning of the 70s. Marsha is THE Drag Queen, Marsha “P” is the Star.
But why that “P”is for?
One year after the Stonewall Inn events, on the anniversary of that terrible night of clashes, Sylvia and Marsha lead the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, the first Gay Pride.
In the passing of time, bitterness and disappointment accompanied gay pride, because the LGBT community didn’t demonstrate respect for drag queens, their history, struggles and labors of those who gave their soul, broken ribs and nose to get those rights, like that role was already forgotten. Without drag queens there would have been no Movement.
Taking that as a betrayal, Sylvia, in a parade, goes on stage to insult the community. It was 1973. Marsha doesn’t, Marsha patiently keep going her job of helping the community.
4th July 1992
More than twenty years later, the LGBT community has its own identity, but homophobia is still on. 400 homicide cases across the country, only in that year, racist episodes everywhere, beatings and fights, this time also of ordinary people who target the community and massacre homosexuals, drag queen prostitutes and anyone who shows a gay nature.
Those are the years where Marsha shares the apartment with Randy Wicker. Randy is convinced that the Movement and the Liberation Festival that take place every year at the G. Village is controlled by mafia families who. also control the clubs. He also receives serious threats to his public demonstrations.Marsha doesn’t want to get into these delicate situations. Marsha is afraid of mafia. She prefers to keep going to spendings her nights on the Stroll showing her flashy clothes, her makeup and her wigs.
This continues to annoy others, because with her smile and her actions, Marsha, it’s uncomfortable. It’s July 4th, The Independance Day. A white car with Italians on keeps drive around the neighborhood. Someone sees Marsha for the last time, around 3am. The witness claims that she was running along the Christopher Street pier chased by two people.
6th July 1992: 5.23 pm
Marsha is there. Swelling of water in a body that has no forms, that no longer even seems to be hers. She’s picked up from the waters of the Hudson River, two days after her disappearance.
Suicide, and the NYPD close the case. But that’s not all. There are many dark sides to the Marsha P. Johnson’s case. The suspicious that she was killed by mafia are many and clues as well.
A “cold case” because there’s no culprits and because it’s strange. Over time dossiers disappear, autopsy reports disappear and reappear, policemen who had dealt with the case and didn’t want to make statements.
She didn’t need to die, to become an icon, but to die like that, made the whole world know about her. The LGBT movement is consolidating, Gay Pride becomes a worldwide event. In Italy, it arrived in 1994. Little curiosity: in 2002 Sylvia Rivera joined the Italian gay pride. Marsha was good and strongly believed in the freedom of expression for who we are. She spent her life fighting for her rights and those of the LGBTQ. But it still takes a lot of “patience” to see a world that lives together without prejudice, violence and discrimination towards human rights.
Justice for Marsha
The Marsha P. Johnson’s case had no justice. And with her many, many other cases of death, killed for the sole fault of being “different” in a “normal” world …
This is why the world day against homophobia is important, this year now in its 30th anniversary.
Today homophobia is still strong. An inexhaustible wave of attacks, constant death threats and bullying among the youngest. Another curiosity: Italy is the worst European country for cases of homophobia and the community is not recognized at all by government laws. Marsha’s struggle continues.
“There will never be another butterfly like you … she used always came out different from its cocoon.“
There is still so much to do, so much to fight. By the way … that “P” is for Marsha Patience Johnson.
