July 29, 2025 • 51 mins
These days, you don’t have to go far to find Marsha. Every June, big box stores roll out the Pride merch, with t-shirts, candles, and ornaments adorned with Marsha’s image. But what happens when those corporations don’t see our stories as profitable anymore? Trans folks are doing what we’ve always done, showing up for each other. Hear from our community leaders and elders who are speaking out, helping people find housing and safety, and preserving our history. That’s Marsha’s real legacy. And it matters more than ever.
Learn more about G.L.I.T.S., House of gg, and other organizations that support the trans community like The Audre Lorde Project and Transgender Law Center. You can also find more information about the Michaels' family foundation. Plus learn more about Safara Malone’s activism and hear more from her on Queer Chronicles, another podcast hosted by Raquel. As always, you can find additional content on our Instagram @afterlives.pod.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Afterlives is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The Outspoken
podcast Network in partnership with School of Humans. Just to
heads up, the following episode mentions drug addiction and discusses racist, homophobic,
and transphobic violence.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Take care while listening.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Two years ago, Pride Be Your Company down in Washington,
d C. Need this pills it for Washa Limited Edition.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I'm with Marcia's nephew, Al Michaels in his kitchen in Elizabeth,
New Jersey. He holds up a bright yellow can with
a cartoon of one of Marsha's most famous pictures, bright
pink dress, red lips, and a huge flower crown.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I contacted them and they sent some shirts, but they
have shirts with the same pictures.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Al didn't even know about the yard first. He just
stumbled upon it on the internet. Sometimes he feels a
little uncomfortable about how Marsha's name and image are used.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
If it's for a good cause, like I know this
was sort of nonprofit and for a prodident, I have
no problem with it, but just to make money off
of Marshallton, Yeah, I feel funny.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
About Marsha's legacy has come to be associated with many things.
She's become a symbol of something far bigger than herself.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I can't be on the internet, on my phone on
TV without seeing somehow a celebrity or a picture or
Google or somebody, you know, Honor and Marshall.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
So you saw the Google homepage?
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, how did that fail to see that?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
You know, when you make it with a corporation like that,
you know you're in the map.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
In twenty twenty, Marsha was one of those Google doodles.
The graphic was based on that same photo of her
in that flower crown. In one sense, it's great that
so many people can learn about Marsha and find out
what she stood for.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
But in another, it can feel like her whole, varied and.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Complicated life is being boiled down to a single smiley snapshot.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Now this is sent to me by a woman from Denmark.
He wrote a poem about Marsha.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
What I do know for sure is that no matter
how many times Marsha's memory is reduced to a single image,
her story continues to touch people on a very personal level.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
People from around the world send me stuff. It's like amazing,
you know, all these countries, Arabic countries, Asian countries. Everywhere.
They send me stuff or write letters that email me,
and it just surprised me how Marsha affected people all
over the world.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
All handed me the frame poem sent to him by JG.
Danzo from Denmark. I read it aloud while sitting at
his table. It's time for battle, not celebration. We will
not rest until all our people have their rights in
every nation. If you don't feel ready, we'll pay it
(03:17):
no mind. We'll see to it no one is left behind.
Will you finally commit? Will you stand by our side?
I am just this calling from the Hudson Tide. I'm
markal Willis, and this is afterlives.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
They called me a nage because there's how many quaints
God that I'm one of.
Speaker 6 (03:41):
The few quaits.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
Still, that few waits still, that few points still.
Speaker 7 (03:46):
I didn't take the best.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Of every day anywhere, Episode eight, The Other Side of
the Rainbow.
Speaker 7 (04:04):
In the early nineties, a lot of stories felt like
they were just going to be lost.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
You met Anoni in our last episode. Her band Annie
in the Johnson's is named after Marcia. Back in the nineties,
she moved to the city to go to New York University.
She loved immersing herself in the village, but it was
a really hard time for the queer community.
Speaker 7 (04:29):
It's hard to express how quickly things have changed, but
there was no end to AIDS in New York City insight,
and we were in this end times thing as a community,
and people were really dropping like flies.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
A lot of influential figures in the underground art world
were dying one after the other. Remnants of that vibrant
scene in the village were left in piles on the street.
Speaker 7 (04:58):
As a student arriving in New York City when I
was nineteen, you'd literally find great works of art in
the garbage where some queen had died. It was just
rubble in a weird way, kind of cultural war scene.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Anone watched as more young queer people move to the city.
They knew nothing about the folks who came before them,
people who have been living in their apartment buildings and walking.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
The streets of their neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Just a year before then, Marcia died Unknone didn't want
her to disappear like so many others.
Speaker 7 (05:36):
In October November of ninety two, I did a performance
at this club called Jackie sixty, and I said to them.
I want to sing a set of music about marsh
by Johnson.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
It was not a given that Marcia's story would endure.
I think about creative people who should still be shining
in our community and all the stories that have been
lost to history.
Speaker 7 (06:00):
They were in the middle of their lives, so there
was no collating of archives, and this was pre internet.
This wasn't a digital age. Things took a long time
to organize and had to be carefully managed, and none
of that had taken place.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yes, Marshall lived a spectacularly full life. She helped people
and made art and was among the group who literally set.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Off the modern queer rights movement. But so many.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Kind, inventive, brave people were lost in that same era.
So many black trans people are still dying too young,
and many of their contributions to this world are fading
away before they can be remembered. Marshall left a lot behind,
(06:53):
and we're still uncovering it. We're still trying to piece
together the many sides of her, and we're lucky that
we have the old photos and videos we've shared, along
with a deep well of archives to try and figure
it all out. There are individuals we have to think
for that. People who recorded her and saved the tapes,
(07:16):
digitize the tapes and then shared them with others. People
who dug into old boxes of yellowing articles. People who
just kept saying Marcia.
Speaker 7 (07:29):
I used to tell the story of Marsha B. Johnson
every concert, and I was making plays about her. I
was carrying her through a point in culture where no
one was saying her name.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
A Nonie is one of those people, and Tourmaline is another.
Speaker 8 (07:44):
I've been researching Marcia, coming up on twenty years of
following the thread of that good feeling that Marcia paves
with her life in afterlife.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Like a NONI, Tourmaline also moved to New York for college.
She began organizing with other queer folks and started hearing
whispers down in the village about Marcia and Sylvia.
Speaker 8 (08:07):
And I think that was this small period before anything
was online where I was just kind of asking questions.
I just started to be like, well, who came before us,
Like we weren't existing in a vacuum. I was just
super into lineage.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Even though in the summer of nineteen ninety two, Marcia
had this grand memorial packed with people just a decade later,
in the early two thousands, a Google search didn't lead
formally anywhere. Instead, she dug into other archives to look
at microfiche of old newspapers.
Speaker 8 (08:46):
Back in the day, there was no like Marcia Archive, right,
so I knew, for instance, Arthur Bell has a box
in the New York Public Library. So what I did was,
I was like, oh, maybe if I go into the
Arthur Bell archive, find something.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Arthur Bell was a gay journalist who wrote for The
Village Voice. You heard him in our Star episode interviewing
Sylvia and Marsha on the radio.
Speaker 8 (09:10):
And that's where I saw all the Star papers and
I was like, this is incredible, Like no one knows
this is here because people aren't going to Arthur Bell's
box to look for Marsha p Johnson.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
In twenty twelve, Tourmaline decided to share these archival treasures
on Tumblr. That was just around the time I was
posting about my own transition and discovering photos of the
transcestor I never knew I had. It was a place
where queer history became accessible to anyone who wanted to
find it.
Speaker 8 (09:42):
So it felt part of this like really invigorating strategy
to be sharing and receiving. If there was no audience
and receiver of the information, it wouldn't have evolved into
a book. It wouldn't have continued, you know. And so
to me, I'm just so filled with gratitude for that loop.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
As a listener of this podcast, you're now a part
of that loop. And as humble as Tormaline.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Is, she deserves so much credit.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Our team used her old tumblr and her book as
cornerstones of our research. Side note, Marcia The Join Defiance
of Marsha P. Johnson is available wherever books are sold.
Tell them I sent you Tourmaline carries Marcia's legacy close
to her heart.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
A lot of people do.
Speaker 8 (10:39):
I never met her in her physical form, but I
feel a deep personal relationship that exists in a spiritual
realm with her. I dream about Marcia, I talk to Marcia.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I feel like Marcia helps comfort me too. She's a
north star. When things seemed difficult, I can always lean
on her example. She navigated much harder times than I have,
with so much less. Because of her, I have a
duty to be relentless in my pursuit of liberation.
Speaker 8 (11:15):
The way I think of life is that we exist
much more than our physical bodies, and so to me,
I believe Marcia has never been more alive than right now.
Every day, every moment, she's getting bigger, and that biggest
part of her continued to expand after she left her body.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
She's alive and the friends that knew her, the folks
from all over the world who send letters to al
She's become bigger than anyone could have imagined.
Speaker 9 (11:47):
Let's say I went to heaven and ran into Marcia,
I'd say, Marshay, you don't know. It's amazing. You became
very famous.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Randy Wicker has been instrumental in upholding and amplifying Marsha's too.
Speaker 9 (12:01):
I just loved the girl and fall for her and
fall for her memory in just to keep the record
straight somehow.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Not only did Randy take plenty of photos and videos
of Marcia, he publicized them. He's worked with historians, contributed
to articles, taken part in events all to honor her life.
Just a couple months ago, he went to Washington, d C.
To contribute to a monument honoring trans stories and freedom.
(12:31):
Two hundred and fifty fabric panels created by trans folks
in their allies came together to spell out the words
freedom to.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Be on the National Mall. Randy made a panel for Marcia.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
He posed beside it wearing a black and white pin
with her photo. Randy made that pen over thirty years
ago when he was seeking justice after her death. He
keeps Marsha's image pinned to his chest when he's mark
chant Pride or giving a commencement speech. Even when we
(13:05):
interviewed him in his living room.
Speaker 9 (13:07):
It's another thing is you've never seen me without Marsha button.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
But still he says he never pictured Marcia looming so large.
Speaker 9 (13:17):
When Time magazine has one hundred most Important Women of
the Century and the cover you that have Ruth Vader
Ginsburg and next version in would be Princess Diana, and
the third cover page in would be Marsha P. Johnson.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
It's incredible, but the work isn't done.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
There's misinformation to correct, there's historical erasure to combat, and
so many lives that can still gain something from knowing
Marsha's real story.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
My biggest thing is to educate the people of Elizabeth,
the younger kids coming up, and let them know that
this is where Marshall was going. This is where Marsha's
from and she's an important part of history and Elizabeth history.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Al Michaels helped start a family foundation to honor Marsha.
One of their biggest goals to create a memorial for
Marsha in her hometown.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
We already have the site where we're going to build,
right across from an alternative school with a lot of
LGBQT plus kids go when they have problems in the
regular publics, you know, buildings, So those kids will be
able to see Marsha out the platform windows.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Do you know what the memorial is going to look like.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
We want it to be something that maybe people can
interact with, you know what I mean? For Marsha. It
has to be special. Can't be a traditional setet.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Despite what a big name Marcia is, it's been hard
to keep up momentum for the project. For one thing,
Al is adamant about raising the money from the ground up.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Sylvia was grassroots. Marsha was grassroots. Believe the power for
the people. They don't believe in corporations take it up
control of anything. I want it to be grassroots. That's
the way we're doing it right now, and it's slow,
and here we are Nikola Nayman, and we just gotta
keep going that fight.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Sometimes al Get's frustrated because anyone can invoke his aunt
Marsha's name without asking. He tells me about one housing
organization that he says maintains deplorable conditions, or the politicians
that want a photo op with the family but don't
want to help them in return. And of course there's
(15:35):
the March. Marcia has appeared on everything from T shirts
to candles to Christmas ornaments.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Marsha's a public figure. There's only so much you can do,
but just the morality of it all, just to use
Marsha to make a buck, it really hurts me. It
really hurts me.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Marsha's legacy doesn't just belong to her family or to
any single person. It's not a monument set in Soon,
as her resonance and the culture grows, there's going to
be a push and pull about what it represents, about
who can wear Marshall on a T shirt, whether she
(16:15):
should even be on T shirts.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Marsha didn't have the chance to figure out how she
was going to be remembered.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
She didn't get that time, the time to reflect on
and really relish her status.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
As a game changer.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Nonetheless, her spirit lives on, and so do the causes
she stood for. After the break, we'll move beyond monuments
and merge to see what has come from the seeds
of Marsha's activism.
Speaker 6 (16:46):
I helped the girl get her doctrine and when she graduated,
because she had no family, it was Cayenne and the
audience crying.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Stick with us.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
Housing has to look like home, but your home shouldn't
look like a jail. I see a lot of these
programmings that call theirselves housing is the equivalent of the
size of a jail. And how do you grow?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
You met Kyenne door Show in our episode about the
eighties and the AIDS crisis. She considers herself Marsha's granddaughter.
Kyenne is the founder of Glitz, a black trans led
advocacy and direct services organization based in New York City.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
Glitz is a one stop shop for it all, guidance, housing,
food security. Everything is thought about carefully, It's not thought
about in one bit of whimsy.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Today Glitz has a housing complex and wrap around services,
But just a handful of years ago, Kyanne was helping
one person at a time. It started when a young
trans woman in Uganda reached out when she was actually
being hunted. You heard that right, hunted. Kyenne jumped in,
(18:18):
brought her to New York and helped her build a life.
Speaker 6 (18:22):
She told me she wasn't ready for education, and I said, okay,
when you're ready, let me know. And when she was
ready to go to school, she got her ged and
I said, oh my god, I'm so proud of you.
We're gonna need in a ship cheese degree and she said, oh,
come on.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
But she did get that associates and then her bachelor's
and then her masters, and today she's a nurse practitioner.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
It's such a warm and healing feeling when you went
from running for your life with nothing to fighting for
your life and striving to get this education that's going
to help you help the world.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
For years, Kyenne was working independently, letting people stay in
her own home, using her own money in small donations.
But in June twenty twenty, Glitz raised over one million
dollars following Brooklyn Liberations March for Black trans Lives. Kyenne
wanted to break the mold of what emergency housing could
(19:39):
look like like. She said, not rooms, that look like
jail cells. She wanted her community to have access to
the best of the best.
Speaker 6 (19:49):
Well Glitz creates will be in safe neighborhoods, will be
ideal real estate for an ideal set of people, My people,
our people. Then we're able to take care of each
other like a family mechanism. Then you're able to add
(20:10):
in education, adding the things that we're not offered by society.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Glitz purchased an entire apartment building in Queen's with twelve units.
Each one is customized by an interior designer. It's walking
distance to a state park. I think Marsha would have
been overjoyed to see it.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
Sylvia and Marsha had a plan. I think they had
a vision. I think that the plan to create something
beautiful was cut short.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Marcia, Sylvia and the Stars had a building of their
own too. It was crumbling and they were evicted too quickly,
but they did what they could to shelter their community.
Glitz carries that vision forward. It can be easy to
lump the demands of our ancestors under the banner of
(21:10):
freedom or rights, but the Stars had specific ideas and
demands of those in power. They wanted queer people in
the village to be able to access classes at NYU.
They wanted to set up a school for runaway kids
at Starhouse. They didn't get to see that vision come
(21:30):
to life. Fifty years later, Kyenne has sat through multiple
graduations for people who've passed through GLITZ.
Speaker 6 (21:41):
I helped the girl get her doctor in and when
she graduated because she had no family. As valedictorian from UCLA,
it was Cayenne and the audience crying.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Martia and Sylvia wanted to start a bellfund then offer
legal assistance. In twenty twenty, Kyanne started getting calls from
people incarcerated in New York City jails where the COVID
nineteen virus was a rampant. They were trapped because they
couldn't afford BELL.
Speaker 6 (22:17):
Why not bail people out, get AIRB andb's so they
can shelter in place? And what would it look like
to do that a buddy system and how would we
do this? But it all starts from an idea.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Marshall was a dreamer. Kyenne is too.
Speaker 6 (22:39):
What would it look like to do a farm to
table for our community and our own brand of farmers' markets,
done right on our own land where people can be
taught how to farm, how to serve, how to market,
how to cook. The hopes and dreams for our community
(23:00):
of endless.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
To me, Glitz is firmly lodged in the Star legacy.
But when I asked Kyane if she saw it that way,
she said no. She told me Glitz came from her
own needs, her own trauma, from being a young, unhoused
black trans girl in New York. Kayane is one of
(23:23):
many people who has shared marcia struggles and her ambitions too.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
The vision for Star never belonged to Marsha.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Alone, and it was never confined to an apartment on
East Second Street. The thing about being a visionary is
that the bigger your scope, the more people can pick
up the torch.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
I'm always living in my transness, along with my trains brothers,
fighting to maintain and sustain in this bit of earth.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
It's a very dangerous time to be trans. Donald Trump,
backed by conservatives, and a flood of misinformation across media,
has made our community more visible than ever. The combination
of forces casts a spotlight designed to escapegoat us and
restrict our right to simply move through the world. It's
(24:21):
easy to feel overwhelmed by all of this hate to
feel like things are worse than ever. This season, our
queer elders have reminded us that nobody is ever going
to come and save us. We have to take care
of each other. We protect us. Marsha knew that it's
(24:42):
perhaps the deepest and truest things she left behind, and
it's up to us to keep it gloriously alive.
Speaker 10 (24:53):
My job was to go into all the shelters that
I could get into. One of the best experiences in
my life that I could actually sit down with these
men and women that were queer and try to figure
out where I could help.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
You know Jay tool from throughout the season. They spent
decades of their life without a home. It wasn't until
their early fifties that something changed.
Speaker 10 (25:19):
I was in the shelter system in Manhattan. This woman
came in who was working at the Coalition for the Homeless,
and I was just off crack, and she's seen something
in me that I didn't know I had in me.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
It was two thousand and one. Jay was invited to
an organizing meeting. They got up in front of all
of those people and spoke from the heart as a
queer unhoused person.
Speaker 10 (25:44):
I got up, took the microphone and told them what
they needed to do.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
They needed to.
Speaker 10 (25:48):
Come into the shelter system. They needed to talk about
substance abuse, which people don't do, mental health issues, living
on the streets.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
An amazing thing happened that day. People listened. Eventually, some
of the folks at the meeting formed an organization called
Queers for Economic Justice or QEJ.
Speaker 10 (26:11):
We got an office and they wanted to hire somebody,
and I said, can I give you my resume?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Mind you?
Speaker 10 (26:18):
I wasn't sure what a resume was, but I knew
was it that you gave it to an employer? And
he said, no, Jay, we're building this for you. This
is going to be you a job.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Jay became the director of qej's shelter project. They were
walking the talk, piecing together the groundwork to support queer
people living in shelters.
Speaker 10 (26:40):
I became a crack addict, homelessness, drunk drug addicts, and
then I became a director.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
They organized seventy support groups in shelters, They hosted know
your Rights trainings and other workshops. They even sparked policy
change in two thou thousand and six, qej's advocacy led
New York City to allow trans New Yorkers to stay
in either the men's or women's shelter system based on
(27:10):
their self determination. In two thousand and seven, same sex
domestic partners were given access to a shared shelter. I
think of Marsha's sleeping in movie theaters or bath houses,
or in the Port authority, cramming into crappy hotel rooms,
or curling up under tables in the Flower District. I
(27:31):
never came across anything about her staying in a shelter.
The stars needed to create something for their community because
they weren't welcomed anywhere else. JAY worked to change that.
They gave their everything to their job. They felt guilty
turning off their phone at night. Despite all of that
(27:52):
hard work, In twenty fourteen, after twelve years, QEJ closed
its doors. There just wasn't enough funding. And it's a
damn shame and it's shameful that we're facing the same
problem today. Corporate sponsors are backing out of pride, big
box stores are downsizing their Rainbow merge, and TV networks
(28:17):
are pulling queer stories from their lineups. Support for the
queer community shouldn't be based on the whims of corporations
or politics, and yet we are seeing the most powerful
institutions let us down again and again. Jay said something
(28:38):
that helped me focus on what matters most in this moment.
Speaker 10 (28:43):
Walk hand in hand, you know, grab your transistor's hand,
Grab your butcher's hand, Grab your people of colors hands,
grab white hands, Grab all the hands you can grab
and hold tight. You know, because we are one that
my heart will one community. When we're attacked, we have
(29:05):
to stay as one community.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I can imagine Marshall saying exactly this. We may not
have Marshall on this earth, but queer elders like Jay
and Miss Major are still here and fighting, and we
have to listen to them.
Speaker 11 (29:25):
We stuggle so long, so hard, so often for the
rights that we have. We're not going to just give
them up and go, oh, well let's turn around. Well
we're not going we're going to win.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
You met Mama Major early in our series, talking about
her days down in Times Square. Over All her years
of fighting for our rights, Major has become known for
a signature catchphrase, a philosophy of swords.
Speaker 11 (29:58):
To tell that leg it fucking is exactly the truth.
Now some may have bullsheed batherfuck of eye as they
want you to sorrow to like it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Fucking is from Major.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
There's a lot of bullshit to see pass. She doesn't
put much stock in rainbow logos or even government plaques
about stonewall. She knows how quickly those things can be
whisked away.
Speaker 12 (30:28):
A new survey of executives chows nearly forty percent plan
to pull back on how they engage with pride this year.
Why more than sixty percent say they fear backlash from
the Trump administration.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Now we're seeing it for ourselves in real time. What
Miss Major cares about is changing our community's material conditions,
the same things Marsha cared about.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
She fed those.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Who were hungry, took care of the sick, housed the house.
Marcia tried to help people survive. Mama Major wants us
to go beyond just survival and basic necessities. She's created
a retreat called House of Gigi. It's a space for
trans folks to rest, heal, relax, create and.
Speaker 11 (31:20):
Enjoy trust, hope, faith, truth, light, love, compassion. As such
a household persists that I represent.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Back in twenty twenty two, I went to the House
of Gigi to do so much needed.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Work on my memoir.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Let me tell you it was all the things Mama
Major described and more. As Janet Mak often says, it
was a delight to sit at the feet of my
elder and absorb all of those lessons and that warmth
in person.
Speaker 11 (32:00):
I feel good about it because it givesn't a chance
to show them what they can have.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
She says, if you can't see it yourself, you can't
envision it. If you can't envision it, you can't dream it,
and you can't achieve it. Breaking out of that cycle,
she says, feels like heaven.
Speaker 11 (32:23):
It's just heaven, you know, because every time that a
girl comes here, I've done somethings to make her life better.
I feel good about that.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
No rainbow swag or corporate sponsorship can replicate that feeling.
This is community, this is belonging, this is mutual aid
and care. It's what Marsha inspired in people too.
Speaker 11 (32:52):
When they would ask me, of all the things that
I had done, was the most important thing. And I
don't think I've done it yet.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Period After decades, Miss Major is not done doing the
fucking work. I only wish Marcia could have made it
to fight just as long. You can check out our
show notes to learn about the organizations we discussed.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 9 (33:30):
There.
Speaker 7 (33:30):
She is the lady in red, shameless hussy.
Speaker 9 (33:33):
She's looking for pomp a billion dollars, but she ain't
gonna find it.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
They better stick with me. I'm the best thing you've
got going for you so far.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
We're back.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Here's Marcia hanging out with Randy and their friend Byron
at their apartment in Hoboken. It's the same video we
heard at the very start of the season. Marsha's flitting
about the house getting ready for a date.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I'm gonna put on my Valentine outfit.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I love it. Yes, you're gonna be gagging.
Speaker 13 (34:03):
You'd be surprised to make gorgeous close Brandy got around
here for me that I don't even wear.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
The first time I watched this clip, seeing Marcia swan
around her kitchen, hearing her earnestness but also her sarcasm,
it changed something for me. She was always this iconic
activist in my head, but while putting this season together,
she became so much more. For one thing, I've gotten
(34:30):
to see what Her activism is really made of how
her pay and no mind attitude was a kind of fearlessness,
a shield, a fuck you to anyone not on board,
a kind of intentionality that Marcia moved through the world with.
I don't think she always gets credit for that. I
also grew to understand her abundant generosity and how she
(34:55):
built a way of life around that superpower.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Marcia is the same of giving. Why sh it is
gonna make sure that you're taken care of? Wellsha's gonna
give you the shirt up her back. Why she's gonna
feed you, Gonna take her last food and give it
to you.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Her nephew Al captures a sentiment here that I heard
again and again while recording the show. Everyone had a
story about a time when someone complimented Marshall on something
she was wearing, and the next scene they knew Marshall
was taking it off and giving it away.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Approach, a coat, a hat, it.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Didn't matter, She's still a loaf of bread, then handed
to someone walking by who looked hungry, collect money on
the street and pass it on. Of course, this is
all on top of the marches she went to the
organizing meeting. She attended, the way she put herself on
the line at Stonewall, how she opened her apartments to
(35:58):
those in need. I asked out what he wishes he
could say to Marsha.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Now, personally myself, I would say thank you, thank you
for helping me to become the person and the man
that I am. Thank you for opening my mind and
not installing the prejudices and say hatred that other people
installing people. Thank you for letting me be myself.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
We may not be able to speak to Marsha directly,
but there are many ways that people show their gratitude,
whether by upholding her values, amplifying her story, or by
living freely as themselves.
Speaker 14 (36:43):
To me, Marcia's dream was trans freedom. That is Marcia's
legacy is giving black trans kids the freedom to exist
and choose their pathway.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
So far, Ma Malone as a young black trans woman
and a brilliant activist. You can learn more about Safara
on another podcast that hosted Queer Chronicles.
Speaker 14 (37:08):
So very Humbly, I go to Harvard University, where I
am now a junior studying Government and women gener Sexuality
Studies with a hope to be a lobbyist on Capitol
Hill for trans advocacy and trans writes.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
So Far has come a long way from those tiny
towns she grew up in where it felt nearly impossible
to find black queer role models.
Speaker 14 (37:34):
I colloquially like to call it bumfuck middle of nowhere, Texas.
I was one of the only black kids in my
entire school, and that was very hard for me because
it made me incredibly insecure about all of my features.
But it was also like early forms of dysphoria that
I didn't know yet.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
In eighth grade, she moved to Austin, where she joined
the Gay Straight Alliance at her school.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
As a straight ally.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Of course, she started finding queer community, seeing the beauty
of black womanhood, and finding love within herself. She also
found out about Marcia.
Speaker 14 (38:14):
I think it was my freshman year. It was Black
History Month. I think I had heard of Marsha B.
Johnson before that point, but that was my first time
fully researching her and going into her story and finding
out all that she did for the trans community and
for the queer community as a whole.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
By the time senior year came around, so Far was
student body president and gave the closing speech at her graduation.
Speaker 14 (38:41):
In the room with us. Now lies change makers in
this room, like community organizers. In this room live revolutionaries.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
In her cap and gown with multiple's tassles around her neck,
Sofara invited her classmates to use their own power to
make the world better. She asked them to build a
world where trans people have autonomy over their own bodies,
where people are not systematically houseless, and students don't fear
for their lives at school. In her final moments on stage,
(39:16):
Safar shared some empowering words.
Speaker 14 (39:20):
I want to leave you with a quote from transgender
rights activists Marsha P.
Speaker 6 (39:24):
Johnson.
Speaker 14 (39:26):
No pride for some of us without liberation for all
of us. We have the power to change our living history.
The question is.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
How you hear that? That's so far getting a resounding
standing ovation. Sure, some people from the local school boards
shook their head, but so Far knew that Marcia had
(40:03):
always been an agitator. She didn't mind being one too,
so Far tells me Marcia remains her biggest inspiration.
Speaker 14 (40:13):
Being able to go to Harvard, being able to work
hard and to get into these positions, and to be
able to go to a school like this and travel
the world off Harvard's financial aid. I think that's everything
that she would have wanted.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
She's fulfilling Marsha's wildest dreams and so far wants her
reality to be shared by many more trans kids.
Speaker 14 (40:41):
The trans community is constantly in a fight, right but
we've won that fight before. We're still winning that fight,
even if it feels hard. I think if we live
with her legacy in mind and persevere the way that
she did, I think that will be fine.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
When politics are trying to silence us, when workplaces and
public spaces are trying to shut us out, when the
courts are trying to prevent us from accessing life saving
medical care, when our self expression is seen as a threat.
This is actually when Marcia's memory shines bright us because
(41:24):
she confronted all of that too and did it let
it stop her.
Speaker 8 (41:30):
This moment, with all of these laws that being passed
is a portal to another moment in time that Marcia existed.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
That's our girl Tourmaline again.
Speaker 8 (41:40):
Marcia knew that we could change these things, and I
think that's so important to know that what we're being
offered that we know isn't enough, was being offered to
our ancestors. And they had great clarity about their capacity
to change the world.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Hear this, We're not alone.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
There's a wisdom in our history, and that's why we
won't ever let it be erased.
Speaker 8 (42:09):
In moments, says we come to understand like turning down
our glamor, our beauty, our magic doesn't make a world
safer for us. It's actually the opposite.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Marsha refused to be in the closet. She didn't turn
down her magic. She never stepped away from those with
aids or backed away from activism because of respectability politics.
She gave everything for her freedom and everyone else's.
Speaker 8 (42:39):
Things that people thought were superficial, like all that glamor magic,
all that fabulousness. Superficiality can sometimes be deeper than anything
that we call depth. So to me, as we come
to know who we really are, it's so easy to
connect that knowing and that feeling of empowerment and joy
(43:00):
to Marcia Johnson.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Tapping into this knowledge, this ancestral power, it makes me
realize why Marcia is called a saint and why people
like me have such a spiritual connection to her.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
She's in the morning and evening prayers and I have
her photo.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Of Augusta Manchado is one of those people. His shrines
are on view at MoMA, but others are in his
apartment where he prays to them daily.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
This current shrine is all the people who have really
moved and touched and in part of all our movement
next to Marsha of Sylvia. And part of the things
of this rine is these people should get acknowledgment.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
And what do those prayers that you share about Marcia
sound like?
Speaker 4 (43:52):
I asked for her strength and blessing and thank her
for the encouragement that we've gotten this far and she's
illuminated the whole world. Is that no matter how repressive
governments around the country are, and the flux and the
pendulum going back and forth, she did it. Marcia P.
(44:14):
Johnson did it for all of us.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Augusto's spirituality is very personal, but he's right. Marcia did
it for us all. She affects us all. There are
people who believe this way of thinking about Marcia will
only grow.
Speaker 9 (44:34):
I don't believe in God, don't believe in heaven, but
I can honestly say I believe in Marsia B. Johnson,
being a saint, I predict that she will be the
first transgender saint of the Roman Catholic Church.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
As Randy tells me this, he wears that pen that
he created from Marcia decades ago. Augusto wears one to
our interview too, one by one in her garden, allowing
all that she sold to blossom.
Speaker 9 (45:06):
Oh, oh my god, these original magnus from God.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
When our interview with Randy wrapped up, he brought out
some more Marcia buttons. The black and white photo with
the flower crown, Wow.
Speaker 8 (45:21):
You need you and neither.
Speaker 9 (45:25):
Nine they were made at the same time.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Randy handed one to me and my producers before we
said our goodbyes. It felt like I was being past
the torch. I was given a part of Marcia's history
that I could hold in my hand. I had it
with me when I was arrested in front of the
Supreme Court protesting the recent ruling that Greenlit State bands
(45:49):
on gender affirming care for trans youth. Once again, in
my rage and mourning, Marcia's spirit held me. I'm marvels
how that spirit is captured so perfectly in a simple
smiling photo. There's so much life and so much heart.
Speaker 11 (46:10):
Oh this was nice.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Bay at the beginning of the season. I told you
Marcia gave us a task.
Speaker 13 (46:26):
We've come a long way and gave movement, but we
got a long way to go. And I think that
all of us gay brothers and sisters just tried to
keep on doing our best, to hold each other's hand
and keep on going right through the aids, barbar's and
everything to the other decide the rainbow.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
I told you that Marcia was with me at that
protest in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Well, we know about Marcia, don't we.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
I fill her with me now more than ever. And
while I'll cherish the button Randy gifted me, you don't
need one to carry on Marsha's legacy.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
You too can bring her with you.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Her story emanates enough light for us all to baskin.
As you hit the streets and raise your voices, I
urge you to remember Marsha. I want you to carry
her complexities with you and chant with her righteous anger.
I want you to stand up for young people like Saphara.
Speaker 6 (47:36):
What drives gids are under dock.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
I want you to remember that for each Marcia, there
are many whose legacies we will never know.
Speaker 5 (47:48):
It's so many queens God that I'm one of the
few queens is still left from the seventies in the sixties.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
I want you to remember her when you see unhoused
people or people struggling with mental illness. Listen to what
her friend Tommy asked us to do.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
So get a few trainings and put them in your pocket.
Speaker 4 (48:08):
And when someone asks you for recorder and much twenty
dollar bill.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Be generous like Marcia, make art be art, and pay
things that don't really matter, absolutely no mind, and most importantly,
remember we need each other.
Speaker 5 (48:28):
And I figure as long as if one gay person
that has walk for gay rights, don all of us
should be walking for gay rights. Didn't know celt right
for people who don't all have their rights.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Thank you so much for listening to Afterlives. This episode
is the last of the season, but don't worry, we
have a few bonus interviews coming your way with people
we knew you'd want to hear more from.
Speaker 8 (49:03):
That is the kind of feeling that I seek to
evoke through my art. You're entering a world and you're
going to be met with generosity and care.
Speaker 6 (49:12):
And I bought paink cap Billy Martin cowboy boots and
I will never forget because my dad threw those boots
in the garbage, and I went into garbage and I
got those boots back.
Speaker 10 (49:24):
Out, definitely going into stores and picking up food and.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
The same thing today.
Speaker 10 (49:29):
You know, that's how the kids just survive them today,
the same way we survived seventy years ago.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
Y'all.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
We put in work this season. Please leave us a
rating and review to let us know what you think.
It truly is a way to share Marsha's story and
help others find the show. After lives as a production
of The Outspoken Network from iHeart Podcasts in partnership with
(49:57):
School of Humans. I'm your host and creator Roquel Willis.
Dylan Hoyer is our senior producer and scriptwriter. Our associate
producer is Joey pat Sound design and engineering by Jess Crimechich,
Story editing by Julia Urlaun, fact checking by Carolyn Talmage.
(50:19):
Score composed by Wizi Moraine. Our production manager is Daisy Church.
Executive producers include me, Roquel Willis, and Jess Crincic from
The Outspoken Podcast Network, Amelia Brock, Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
and Elsie Crowley from School of Humans and The Cats Company.
(50:41):
The image of Marsha and our show art is provided
by the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art Founder Skift P.
Fifteen dot six nine nine dot one O six. A
special thanks to everyone who provided archival tape, including Marcia
nineteen ninety two by Michael Casino courtesy of Michael Casino,
(51:04):
the Randy Wicker and Marsha P. Johnson Papers at the
LGBT Community Center National History Archives, and interview with Marsha P.
Johnson nineteen eighty eight from one National Gay and Lesbian
Archives at the USC Libraries
Afterlives is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The Outspoken
podcast Network in partnership with School of Humans. Just to
heads up, the following episode mentions drug addiction and discusses racist, homophobic,
and transphobic violence.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Take care while listening.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Two years ago, Pride Be Your Company down in Washington,
d C. Need this pills it for Washa Limited Edition.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I'm with Marcia's nephew, Al Michaels in his kitchen in Elizabeth,
New Jersey. He holds up a bright yellow can with
a cartoon of one of Marsha's most famous pictures, bright
pink dress, red lips, and a huge flower crown.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I contacted them and they sent some shirts, but they
have shirts with the same pictures.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Al didn't even know about the yard first. He just
stumbled upon it on the internet. Sometimes he feels a
little uncomfortable about how Marsha's name and image are used.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
If it's for a good cause, like I know this
was sort of nonprofit and for a prodident, I have
no problem with it, but just to make money off
of Marshallton, Yeah, I feel funny.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
About Marsha's legacy has come to be associated with many things.
She's become a symbol of something far bigger than herself.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I can't be on the internet, on my phone on
TV without seeing somehow a celebrity or a picture or
Google or somebody, you know, Honor and Marshall.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
So you saw the Google homepage?
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, how did that fail to see that?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
You know, when you make it with a corporation like that,
you know you're in the map.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
In twenty twenty, Marsha was one of those Google doodles.
The graphic was based on that same photo of her
in that flower crown. In one sense, it's great that
so many people can learn about Marsha and find out
what she stood for.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
But in another, it can feel like her whole, varied and.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Complicated life is being boiled down to a single smiley snapshot.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Now this is sent to me by a woman from Denmark.
He wrote a poem about Marsha.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
What I do know for sure is that no matter
how many times Marsha's memory is reduced to a single image,
her story continues to touch people on a very personal level.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
People from around the world send me stuff. It's like amazing,
you know, all these countries, Arabic countries, Asian countries. Everywhere.
They send me stuff or write letters that email me,
and it just surprised me how Marsha affected people all
over the world.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
All handed me the frame poem sent to him by JG.
Danzo from Denmark. I read it aloud while sitting at
his table. It's time for battle, not celebration. We will
not rest until all our people have their rights in
every nation. If you don't feel ready, we'll pay it
(03:17):
no mind. We'll see to it no one is left behind.
Will you finally commit? Will you stand by our side?
I am just this calling from the Hudson Tide. I'm
markal Willis, and this is afterlives.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
They called me a nage because there's how many quaints
God that I'm one of.
Speaker 6 (03:41):
The few quaits.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
Still, that few waits still, that few points still.
Speaker 7 (03:46):
I didn't take the best.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Of every day anywhere, Episode eight, The Other Side of
the Rainbow.
Speaker 7 (04:04):
In the early nineties, a lot of stories felt like
they were just going to be lost.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
You met Anoni in our last episode. Her band Annie
in the Johnson's is named after Marcia. Back in the nineties,
she moved to the city to go to New York University.
She loved immersing herself in the village, but it was
a really hard time for the queer community.
Speaker 7 (04:29):
It's hard to express how quickly things have changed, but
there was no end to AIDS in New York City insight,
and we were in this end times thing as a community,
and people were really dropping like flies.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
A lot of influential figures in the underground art world
were dying one after the other. Remnants of that vibrant
scene in the village were left in piles on the street.
Speaker 7 (04:58):
As a student arriving in New York City when I
was nineteen, you'd literally find great works of art in
the garbage where some queen had died. It was just
rubble in a weird way, kind of cultural war scene.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Anone watched as more young queer people move to the city.
They knew nothing about the folks who came before them,
people who have been living in their apartment buildings and walking.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
The streets of their neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Just a year before then, Marcia died Unknone didn't want
her to disappear like so many others.
Speaker 7 (05:36):
In October November of ninety two, I did a performance
at this club called Jackie sixty, and I said to them.
I want to sing a set of music about marsh
by Johnson.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
It was not a given that Marcia's story would endure.
I think about creative people who should still be shining
in our community and all the stories that have been
lost to history.
Speaker 7 (06:00):
They were in the middle of their lives, so there
was no collating of archives, and this was pre internet.
This wasn't a digital age. Things took a long time
to organize and had to be carefully managed, and none
of that had taken place.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yes, Marshall lived a spectacularly full life. She helped people
and made art and was among the group who literally set.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Off the modern queer rights movement. But so many.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Kind, inventive, brave people were lost in that same era.
So many black trans people are still dying too young,
and many of their contributions to this world are fading
away before they can be remembered. Marshall left a lot behind,
(06:53):
and we're still uncovering it. We're still trying to piece
together the many sides of her, and we're lucky that
we have the old photos and videos we've shared, along
with a deep well of archives to try and figure
it all out. There are individuals we have to think
for that. People who recorded her and saved the tapes,
(07:16):
digitize the tapes and then shared them with others. People
who dug into old boxes of yellowing articles. People who
just kept saying Marcia.
Speaker 7 (07:29):
I used to tell the story of Marsha B. Johnson
every concert, and I was making plays about her. I
was carrying her through a point in culture where no
one was saying her name.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
A Nonie is one of those people, and Tourmaline is another.
Speaker 8 (07:44):
I've been researching Marcia, coming up on twenty years of
following the thread of that good feeling that Marcia paves
with her life in afterlife.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Like a NONI, Tourmaline also moved to New York for college.
She began organizing with other queer folks and started hearing
whispers down in the village about Marcia and Sylvia.
Speaker 8 (08:07):
And I think that was this small period before anything
was online where I was just kind of asking questions.
I just started to be like, well, who came before us,
Like we weren't existing in a vacuum. I was just
super into lineage.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Even though in the summer of nineteen ninety two, Marcia
had this grand memorial packed with people just a decade later,
in the early two thousands, a Google search didn't lead
formally anywhere. Instead, she dug into other archives to look
at microfiche of old newspapers.
Speaker 8 (08:46):
Back in the day, there was no like Marcia Archive, right,
so I knew, for instance, Arthur Bell has a box
in the New York Public Library. So what I did was,
I was like, oh, maybe if I go into the
Arthur Bell archive, find something.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Arthur Bell was a gay journalist who wrote for The
Village Voice. You heard him in our Star episode interviewing
Sylvia and Marsha on the radio.
Speaker 8 (09:10):
And that's where I saw all the Star papers and
I was like, this is incredible, Like no one knows
this is here because people aren't going to Arthur Bell's
box to look for Marsha p Johnson.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
In twenty twelve, Tourmaline decided to share these archival treasures
on Tumblr. That was just around the time I was
posting about my own transition and discovering photos of the
transcestor I never knew I had. It was a place
where queer history became accessible to anyone who wanted to
find it.
Speaker 8 (09:42):
So it felt part of this like really invigorating strategy
to be sharing and receiving. If there was no audience
and receiver of the information, it wouldn't have evolved into
a book. It wouldn't have continued, you know. And so
to me, I'm just so filled with gratitude for that loop.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
As a listener of this podcast, you're now a part
of that loop. And as humble as Tormaline.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Is, she deserves so much credit.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Our team used her old tumblr and her book as
cornerstones of our research. Side note, Marcia The Join Defiance
of Marsha P. Johnson is available wherever books are sold.
Tell them I sent you Tourmaline carries Marcia's legacy close
to her heart.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
A lot of people do.
Speaker 8 (10:39):
I never met her in her physical form, but I
feel a deep personal relationship that exists in a spiritual
realm with her. I dream about Marcia, I talk to Marcia.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I feel like Marcia helps comfort me too. She's a
north star. When things seemed difficult, I can always lean
on her example. She navigated much harder times than I have,
with so much less. Because of her, I have a
duty to be relentless in my pursuit of liberation.
Speaker 8 (11:15):
The way I think of life is that we exist
much more than our physical bodies, and so to me,
I believe Marcia has never been more alive than right now.
Every day, every moment, she's getting bigger, and that biggest
part of her continued to expand after she left her body.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
She's alive and the friends that knew her, the folks
from all over the world who send letters to al
She's become bigger than anyone could have imagined.
Speaker 9 (11:47):
Let's say I went to heaven and ran into Marcia,
I'd say, Marshay, you don't know. It's amazing. You became
very famous.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Randy Wicker has been instrumental in upholding and amplifying Marsha's too.
Speaker 9 (12:01):
I just loved the girl and fall for her and
fall for her memory in just to keep the record
straight somehow.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Not only did Randy take plenty of photos and videos
of Marcia, he publicized them. He's worked with historians, contributed
to articles, taken part in events all to honor her life.
Just a couple months ago, he went to Washington, d C.
To contribute to a monument honoring trans stories and freedom.
(12:31):
Two hundred and fifty fabric panels created by trans folks
in their allies came together to spell out the words
freedom to.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Be on the National Mall. Randy made a panel for Marcia.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
He posed beside it wearing a black and white pin
with her photo. Randy made that pen over thirty years
ago when he was seeking justice after her death. He
keeps Marsha's image pinned to his chest when he's mark
chant Pride or giving a commencement speech. Even when we
(13:05):
interviewed him in his living room.
Speaker 9 (13:07):
It's another thing is you've never seen me without Marsha button.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
But still he says he never pictured Marcia looming so large.
Speaker 9 (13:17):
When Time magazine has one hundred most Important Women of
the Century and the cover you that have Ruth Vader
Ginsburg and next version in would be Princess Diana, and
the third cover page in would be Marsha P. Johnson.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
It's incredible, but the work isn't done.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
There's misinformation to correct, there's historical erasure to combat, and
so many lives that can still gain something from knowing
Marsha's real story.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
My biggest thing is to educate the people of Elizabeth,
the younger kids coming up, and let them know that
this is where Marshall was going. This is where Marsha's
from and she's an important part of history and Elizabeth history.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Al Michaels helped start a family foundation to honor Marsha.
One of their biggest goals to create a memorial for
Marsha in her hometown.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
We already have the site where we're going to build,
right across from an alternative school with a lot of
LGBQT plus kids go when they have problems in the
regular publics, you know, buildings, So those kids will be
able to see Marsha out the platform windows.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Do you know what the memorial is going to look like.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
We want it to be something that maybe people can
interact with, you know what I mean? For Marsha. It
has to be special. Can't be a traditional setet.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Despite what a big name Marcia is, it's been hard
to keep up momentum for the project. For one thing,
Al is adamant about raising the money from the ground up.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Sylvia was grassroots. Marsha was grassroots. Believe the power for
the people. They don't believe in corporations take it up
control of anything. I want it to be grassroots. That's
the way we're doing it right now, and it's slow,
and here we are Nikola Nayman, and we just gotta
keep going that fight.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Sometimes al Get's frustrated because anyone can invoke his aunt
Marsha's name without asking. He tells me about one housing
organization that he says maintains deplorable conditions, or the politicians
that want a photo op with the family but don't
want to help them in return. And of course there's
(15:35):
the March. Marcia has appeared on everything from T shirts
to candles to Christmas ornaments.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Marsha's a public figure. There's only so much you can do,
but just the morality of it all, just to use
Marsha to make a buck, it really hurts me. It
really hurts me.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Marsha's legacy doesn't just belong to her family or to
any single person. It's not a monument set in Soon,
as her resonance and the culture grows, there's going to
be a push and pull about what it represents, about
who can wear Marshall on a T shirt, whether she
(16:15):
should even be on T shirts.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Marsha didn't have the chance to figure out how she
was going to be remembered.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
She didn't get that time, the time to reflect on
and really relish her status.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
As a game changer.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Nonetheless, her spirit lives on, and so do the causes
she stood for. After the break, we'll move beyond monuments
and merge to see what has come from the seeds
of Marsha's activism.
Speaker 6 (16:46):
I helped the girl get her doctrine and when she graduated,
because she had no family, it was Cayenne and the
audience crying.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Stick with us.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
Housing has to look like home, but your home shouldn't
look like a jail. I see a lot of these
programmings that call theirselves housing is the equivalent of the
size of a jail. And how do you grow?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
You met Kyenne door Show in our episode about the
eighties and the AIDS crisis. She considers herself Marsha's granddaughter.
Kyenne is the founder of Glitz, a black trans led
advocacy and direct services organization based in New York City.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
Glitz is a one stop shop for it all, guidance, housing,
food security. Everything is thought about carefully, It's not thought
about in one bit of whimsy.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Today Glitz has a housing complex and wrap around services,
But just a handful of years ago, Kyanne was helping
one person at a time. It started when a young
trans woman in Uganda reached out when she was actually
being hunted. You heard that right, hunted. Kyenne jumped in,
(18:18):
brought her to New York and helped her build a life.
Speaker 6 (18:22):
She told me she wasn't ready for education, and I said, okay,
when you're ready, let me know. And when she was
ready to go to school, she got her ged and
I said, oh my god, I'm so proud of you.
We're gonna need in a ship cheese degree and she said, oh,
come on.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
But she did get that associates and then her bachelor's
and then her masters, and today she's a nurse practitioner.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
It's such a warm and healing feeling when you went
from running for your life with nothing to fighting for
your life and striving to get this education that's going
to help you help the world.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
For years, Kyenne was working independently, letting people stay in
her own home, using her own money in small donations.
But in June twenty twenty, Glitz raised over one million
dollars following Brooklyn Liberations March for Black trans Lives. Kyenne
wanted to break the mold of what emergency housing could
(19:39):
look like like. She said, not rooms, that look like
jail cells. She wanted her community to have access to
the best of the best.
Speaker 6 (19:49):
Well Glitz creates will be in safe neighborhoods, will be
ideal real estate for an ideal set of people, My people,
our people. Then we're able to take care of each
other like a family mechanism. Then you're able to add
(20:10):
in education, adding the things that we're not offered by society.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Glitz purchased an entire apartment building in Queen's with twelve units.
Each one is customized by an interior designer. It's walking
distance to a state park. I think Marsha would have
been overjoyed to see it.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
Sylvia and Marsha had a plan. I think they had
a vision. I think that the plan to create something
beautiful was cut short.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Marcia, Sylvia and the Stars had a building of their
own too. It was crumbling and they were evicted too quickly,
but they did what they could to shelter their community.
Glitz carries that vision forward. It can be easy to
lump the demands of our ancestors under the banner of
(21:10):
freedom or rights, but the Stars had specific ideas and
demands of those in power. They wanted queer people in
the village to be able to access classes at NYU.
They wanted to set up a school for runaway kids
at Starhouse. They didn't get to see that vision come
(21:30):
to life. Fifty years later, Kyenne has sat through multiple
graduations for people who've passed through GLITZ.
Speaker 6 (21:41):
I helped the girl get her doctor in and when
she graduated because she had no family. As valedictorian from UCLA,
it was Cayenne and the audience crying.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Martia and Sylvia wanted to start a bellfund then offer
legal assistance. In twenty twenty, Kyanne started getting calls from
people incarcerated in New York City jails where the COVID
nineteen virus was a rampant. They were trapped because they
couldn't afford BELL.
Speaker 6 (22:17):
Why not bail people out, get AIRB andb's so they
can shelter in place? And what would it look like
to do that a buddy system and how would we
do this? But it all starts from an idea.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Marshall was a dreamer. Kyenne is too.
Speaker 6 (22:39):
What would it look like to do a farm to
table for our community and our own brand of farmers' markets,
done right on our own land where people can be
taught how to farm, how to serve, how to market,
how to cook. The hopes and dreams for our community
(23:00):
of endless.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
To me, Glitz is firmly lodged in the Star legacy.
But when I asked Kyane if she saw it that way,
she said no. She told me Glitz came from her
own needs, her own trauma, from being a young, unhoused
black trans girl in New York. Kayane is one of
(23:23):
many people who has shared marcia struggles and her ambitions too.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
The vision for Star never belonged to Marsha.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Alone, and it was never confined to an apartment on
East Second Street. The thing about being a visionary is
that the bigger your scope, the more people can pick
up the torch.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
I'm always living in my transness, along with my trains brothers,
fighting to maintain and sustain in this bit of earth.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
It's a very dangerous time to be trans. Donald Trump,
backed by conservatives, and a flood of misinformation across media,
has made our community more visible than ever. The combination
of forces casts a spotlight designed to escapegoat us and
restrict our right to simply move through the world. It's
(24:21):
easy to feel overwhelmed by all of this hate to
feel like things are worse than ever. This season, our
queer elders have reminded us that nobody is ever going
to come and save us. We have to take care
of each other. We protect us. Marsha knew that it's
(24:42):
perhaps the deepest and truest things she left behind, and
it's up to us to keep it gloriously alive.
Speaker 10 (24:53):
My job was to go into all the shelters that
I could get into. One of the best experiences in
my life that I could actually sit down with these
men and women that were queer and try to figure
out where I could help.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
You know Jay tool from throughout the season. They spent
decades of their life without a home. It wasn't until
their early fifties that something changed.
Speaker 10 (25:19):
I was in the shelter system in Manhattan. This woman
came in who was working at the Coalition for the Homeless,
and I was just off crack, and she's seen something
in me that I didn't know I had in me.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
It was two thousand and one. Jay was invited to
an organizing meeting. They got up in front of all
of those people and spoke from the heart as a
queer unhoused person.
Speaker 10 (25:44):
I got up, took the microphone and told them what
they needed to do.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
They needed to.
Speaker 10 (25:48):
Come into the shelter system. They needed to talk about
substance abuse, which people don't do, mental health issues, living
on the streets.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
An amazing thing happened that day. People listened. Eventually, some
of the folks at the meeting formed an organization called
Queers for Economic Justice or QEJ.
Speaker 10 (26:11):
We got an office and they wanted to hire somebody,
and I said, can I give you my resume?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Mind you?
Speaker 10 (26:18):
I wasn't sure what a resume was, but I knew
was it that you gave it to an employer? And
he said, no, Jay, we're building this for you. This
is going to be you a job.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Jay became the director of qej's shelter project. They were
walking the talk, piecing together the groundwork to support queer
people living in shelters.
Speaker 10 (26:40):
I became a crack addict, homelessness, drunk drug addicts, and
then I became a director.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
They organized seventy support groups in shelters, They hosted know
your Rights trainings and other workshops. They even sparked policy
change in two thou thousand and six, qej's advocacy led
New York City to allow trans New Yorkers to stay
in either the men's or women's shelter system based on
(27:10):
their self determination. In two thousand and seven, same sex
domestic partners were given access to a shared shelter. I
think of Marsha's sleeping in movie theaters or bath houses,
or in the Port authority, cramming into crappy hotel rooms,
or curling up under tables in the Flower District. I
(27:31):
never came across anything about her staying in a shelter.
The stars needed to create something for their community because
they weren't welcomed anywhere else. JAY worked to change that.
They gave their everything to their job. They felt guilty
turning off their phone at night. Despite all of that
(27:52):
hard work, In twenty fourteen, after twelve years, QEJ closed
its doors. There just wasn't enough funding. And it's a
damn shame and it's shameful that we're facing the same
problem today. Corporate sponsors are backing out of pride, big
box stores are downsizing their Rainbow merge, and TV networks
(28:17):
are pulling queer stories from their lineups. Support for the
queer community shouldn't be based on the whims of corporations
or politics, and yet we are seeing the most powerful
institutions let us down again and again. Jay said something
(28:38):
that helped me focus on what matters most in this moment.
Speaker 10 (28:43):
Walk hand in hand, you know, grab your transistor's hand,
Grab your butcher's hand, Grab your people of colors hands,
grab white hands, Grab all the hands you can grab
and hold tight. You know, because we are one that
my heart will one community. When we're attacked, we have
(29:05):
to stay as one community.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I can imagine Marshall saying exactly this. We may not
have Marshall on this earth, but queer elders like Jay
and Miss Major are still here and fighting, and we
have to listen to them.
Speaker 11 (29:25):
We stuggle so long, so hard, so often for the
rights that we have. We're not going to just give
them up and go, oh, well let's turn around. Well
we're not going we're going to win.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
You met Mama Major early in our series, talking about
her days down in Times Square. Over All her years
of fighting for our rights, Major has become known for
a signature catchphrase, a philosophy of swords.
Speaker 11 (29:58):
To tell that leg it fucking is exactly the truth.
Now some may have bullsheed batherfuck of eye as they
want you to sorrow to like it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Fucking is from Major.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
There's a lot of bullshit to see pass. She doesn't
put much stock in rainbow logos or even government plaques
about stonewall. She knows how quickly those things can be
whisked away.
Speaker 12 (30:28):
A new survey of executives chows nearly forty percent plan
to pull back on how they engage with pride this year.
Why more than sixty percent say they fear backlash from
the Trump administration.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Now we're seeing it for ourselves in real time. What
Miss Major cares about is changing our community's material conditions,
the same things Marsha cared about.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
She fed those.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Who were hungry, took care of the sick, housed the house.
Marcia tried to help people survive. Mama Major wants us
to go beyond just survival and basic necessities. She's created
a retreat called House of Gigi. It's a space for
trans folks to rest, heal, relax, create and.
Speaker 11 (31:20):
Enjoy trust, hope, faith, truth, light, love, compassion. As such
a household persists that I represent.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Back in twenty twenty two, I went to the House
of Gigi to do so much needed.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Work on my memoir.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Let me tell you it was all the things Mama
Major described and more. As Janet Mak often says, it
was a delight to sit at the feet of my
elder and absorb all of those lessons and that warmth
in person.
Speaker 11 (32:00):
I feel good about it because it givesn't a chance
to show them what they can have.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
She says, if you can't see it yourself, you can't
envision it. If you can't envision it, you can't dream it,
and you can't achieve it. Breaking out of that cycle,
she says, feels like heaven.
Speaker 11 (32:23):
It's just heaven, you know, because every time that a
girl comes here, I've done somethings to make her life better.
I feel good about that.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
No rainbow swag or corporate sponsorship can replicate that feeling.
This is community, this is belonging, this is mutual aid
and care. It's what Marsha inspired in people too.
Speaker 11 (32:52):
When they would ask me, of all the things that
I had done, was the most important thing. And I
don't think I've done it yet.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Period After decades, Miss Major is not done doing the
fucking work. I only wish Marcia could have made it
to fight just as long. You can check out our
show notes to learn about the organizations we discussed.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 9 (33:30):
There.
Speaker 7 (33:30):
She is the lady in red, shameless hussy.
Speaker 9 (33:33):
She's looking for pomp a billion dollars, but she ain't
gonna find it.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
They better stick with me. I'm the best thing you've
got going for you so far.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
We're back.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Here's Marcia hanging out with Randy and their friend Byron
at their apartment in Hoboken. It's the same video we
heard at the very start of the season. Marsha's flitting
about the house getting ready for a date.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I'm gonna put on my Valentine outfit.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I love it. Yes, you're gonna be gagging.
Speaker 13 (34:03):
You'd be surprised to make gorgeous close Brandy got around
here for me that I don't even wear.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
The first time I watched this clip, seeing Marcia swan
around her kitchen, hearing her earnestness but also her sarcasm,
it changed something for me. She was always this iconic
activist in my head, but while putting this season together,
she became so much more. For one thing, I've gotten
(34:30):
to see what Her activism is really made of how
her pay and no mind attitude was a kind of fearlessness,
a shield, a fuck you to anyone not on board,
a kind of intentionality that Marcia moved through the world with.
I don't think she always gets credit for that. I
also grew to understand her abundant generosity and how she
(34:55):
built a way of life around that superpower.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Marcia is the same of giving. Why sh it is
gonna make sure that you're taken care of? Wellsha's gonna
give you the shirt up her back. Why she's gonna
feed you, Gonna take her last food and give it
to you.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Her nephew Al captures a sentiment here that I heard
again and again while recording the show. Everyone had a
story about a time when someone complimented Marshall on something
she was wearing, and the next scene they knew Marshall
was taking it off and giving it away.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Approach, a coat, a hat, it.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Didn't matter, She's still a loaf of bread, then handed
to someone walking by who looked hungry, collect money on
the street and pass it on. Of course, this is
all on top of the marches she went to the
organizing meeting. She attended, the way she put herself on
the line at Stonewall, how she opened her apartments to
(35:58):
those in need. I asked out what he wishes he
could say to Marsha.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Now, personally myself, I would say thank you, thank you
for helping me to become the person and the man
that I am. Thank you for opening my mind and
not installing the prejudices and say hatred that other people
installing people. Thank you for letting me be myself.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
We may not be able to speak to Marsha directly,
but there are many ways that people show their gratitude,
whether by upholding her values, amplifying her story, or by
living freely as themselves.
Speaker 14 (36:43):
To me, Marcia's dream was trans freedom. That is Marcia's
legacy is giving black trans kids the freedom to exist
and choose their pathway.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
So far, Ma Malone as a young black trans woman
and a brilliant activist. You can learn more about Safara
on another podcast that hosted Queer Chronicles.
Speaker 14 (37:08):
So very Humbly, I go to Harvard University, where I
am now a junior studying Government and women gener Sexuality
Studies with a hope to be a lobbyist on Capitol
Hill for trans advocacy and trans writes.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
So Far has come a long way from those tiny
towns she grew up in where it felt nearly impossible
to find black queer role models.
Speaker 14 (37:34):
I colloquially like to call it bumfuck middle of nowhere, Texas.
I was one of the only black kids in my
entire school, and that was very hard for me because
it made me incredibly insecure about all of my features.
But it was also like early forms of dysphoria that
I didn't know yet.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
In eighth grade, she moved to Austin, where she joined
the Gay Straight Alliance at her school.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
As a straight ally.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Of course, she started finding queer community, seeing the beauty
of black womanhood, and finding love within herself. She also
found out about Marcia.
Speaker 14 (38:14):
I think it was my freshman year. It was Black
History Month. I think I had heard of Marsha B.
Johnson before that point, but that was my first time
fully researching her and going into her story and finding
out all that she did for the trans community and
for the queer community as a whole.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
By the time senior year came around, so Far was
student body president and gave the closing speech at her graduation.
Speaker 14 (38:41):
In the room with us. Now lies change makers in
this room, like community organizers. In this room live revolutionaries.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
In her cap and gown with multiple's tassles around her neck,
Sofara invited her classmates to use their own power to
make the world better. She asked them to build a
world where trans people have autonomy over their own bodies,
where people are not systematically houseless, and students don't fear
for their lives at school. In her final moments on stage,
(39:16):
Safar shared some empowering words.
Speaker 14 (39:20):
I want to leave you with a quote from transgender
rights activists Marsha P.
Speaker 6 (39:24):
Johnson.
Speaker 14 (39:26):
No pride for some of us without liberation for all
of us. We have the power to change our living history.
The question is.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
How you hear that? That's so far getting a resounding
standing ovation. Sure, some people from the local school boards
shook their head, but so Far knew that Marcia had
(40:03):
always been an agitator. She didn't mind being one too,
so Far tells me Marcia remains her biggest inspiration.
Speaker 14 (40:13):
Being able to go to Harvard, being able to work
hard and to get into these positions, and to be
able to go to a school like this and travel
the world off Harvard's financial aid. I think that's everything
that she would have wanted.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
She's fulfilling Marsha's wildest dreams and so far wants her
reality to be shared by many more trans kids.
Speaker 14 (40:41):
The trans community is constantly in a fight, right but
we've won that fight before. We're still winning that fight,
even if it feels hard. I think if we live
with her legacy in mind and persevere the way that
she did, I think that will be fine.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
When politics are trying to silence us, when workplaces and
public spaces are trying to shut us out, when the
courts are trying to prevent us from accessing life saving
medical care, when our self expression is seen as a threat.
This is actually when Marcia's memory shines bright us because
(41:24):
she confronted all of that too and did it let
it stop her.
Speaker 8 (41:30):
This moment, with all of these laws that being passed
is a portal to another moment in time that Marcia existed.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
That's our girl Tourmaline again.
Speaker 8 (41:40):
Marcia knew that we could change these things, and I
think that's so important to know that what we're being
offered that we know isn't enough, was being offered to
our ancestors. And they had great clarity about their capacity
to change the world.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Hear this, We're not alone.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
There's a wisdom in our history, and that's why we
won't ever let it be erased.
Speaker 8 (42:09):
In moments, says we come to understand like turning down
our glamor, our beauty, our magic doesn't make a world
safer for us. It's actually the opposite.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Marsha refused to be in the closet. She didn't turn
down her magic. She never stepped away from those with
aids or backed away from activism because of respectability politics.
She gave everything for her freedom and everyone else's.
Speaker 8 (42:39):
Things that people thought were superficial, like all that glamor magic,
all that fabulousness. Superficiality can sometimes be deeper than anything
that we call depth. So to me, as we come
to know who we really are, it's so easy to
connect that knowing and that feeling of empowerment and joy
(43:00):
to Marcia Johnson.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Tapping into this knowledge, this ancestral power, it makes me
realize why Marcia is called a saint and why people
like me have such a spiritual connection to her.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
She's in the morning and evening prayers and I have
her photo.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Of Augusta Manchado is one of those people. His shrines
are on view at MoMA, but others are in his
apartment where he prays to them daily.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
This current shrine is all the people who have really
moved and touched and in part of all our movement
next to Marsha of Sylvia. And part of the things
of this rine is these people should get acknowledgment.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
And what do those prayers that you share about Marcia
sound like?
Speaker 4 (43:52):
I asked for her strength and blessing and thank her
for the encouragement that we've gotten this far and she's
illuminated the whole world. Is that no matter how repressive
governments around the country are, and the flux and the
pendulum going back and forth, she did it. Marcia P.
(44:14):
Johnson did it for all of us.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Augusto's spirituality is very personal, but he's right. Marcia did
it for us all. She affects us all. There are
people who believe this way of thinking about Marcia will
only grow.
Speaker 9 (44:34):
I don't believe in God, don't believe in heaven, but
I can honestly say I believe in Marsia B. Johnson,
being a saint, I predict that she will be the
first transgender saint of the Roman Catholic Church.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
As Randy tells me this, he wears that pen that
he created from Marcia decades ago. Augusto wears one to
our interview too, one by one in her garden, allowing
all that she sold to blossom.
Speaker 9 (45:06):
Oh, oh my god, these original magnus from God.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
When our interview with Randy wrapped up, he brought out
some more Marcia buttons. The black and white photo with
the flower crown, Wow.
Speaker 8 (45:21):
You need you and neither.
Speaker 9 (45:25):
Nine they were made at the same time.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Randy handed one to me and my producers before we
said our goodbyes. It felt like I was being past
the torch. I was given a part of Marcia's history
that I could hold in my hand. I had it
with me when I was arrested in front of the
Supreme Court protesting the recent ruling that Greenlit State bands
(45:49):
on gender affirming care for trans youth. Once again, in
my rage and mourning, Marcia's spirit held me. I'm marvels
how that spirit is captured so perfectly in a simple
smiling photo. There's so much life and so much heart.
Speaker 11 (46:10):
Oh this was nice.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
Thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Bay at the beginning of the season. I told you
Marcia gave us a task.
Speaker 13 (46:26):
We've come a long way and gave movement, but we
got a long way to go. And I think that
all of us gay brothers and sisters just tried to
keep on doing our best, to hold each other's hand
and keep on going right through the aids, barbar's and
everything to the other decide the rainbow.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
I told you that Marcia was with me at that
protest in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Well, we know about Marcia, don't we.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
I fill her with me now more than ever. And
while I'll cherish the button Randy gifted me, you don't
need one to carry on Marsha's legacy.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
You too can bring her with you.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Her story emanates enough light for us all to baskin.
As you hit the streets and raise your voices, I
urge you to remember Marsha. I want you to carry
her complexities with you and chant with her righteous anger.
I want you to stand up for young people like Saphara.
Speaker 6 (47:36):
What drives gids are under dock.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
I want you to remember that for each Marcia, there
are many whose legacies we will never know.
Speaker 5 (47:48):
It's so many queens God that I'm one of the
few queens is still left from the seventies in the sixties.
Speaker 1 (47:55):
I want you to remember her when you see unhoused
people or people struggling with mental illness. Listen to what
her friend Tommy asked us to do.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
So get a few trainings and put them in your pocket.
Speaker 4 (48:08):
And when someone asks you for recorder and much twenty
dollar bill.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
Be generous like Marcia, make art be art, and pay
things that don't really matter, absolutely no mind, and most importantly,
remember we need each other.
Speaker 5 (48:28):
And I figure as long as if one gay person
that has walk for gay rights, don all of us
should be walking for gay rights. Didn't know celt right
for people who don't all have their rights.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
Thank you so much for listening to Afterlives. This episode
is the last of the season, but don't worry, we
have a few bonus interviews coming your way with people
we knew you'd want to hear more from.
Speaker 8 (49:03):
That is the kind of feeling that I seek to
evoke through my art. You're entering a world and you're
going to be met with generosity and care.
Speaker 6 (49:12):
And I bought paink cap Billy Martin cowboy boots and
I will never forget because my dad threw those boots
in the garbage, and I went into garbage and I
got those boots back.
Speaker 10 (49:24):
Out, definitely going into stores and picking up food and.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
The same thing today.
Speaker 10 (49:29):
You know, that's how the kids just survive them today,
the same way we survived seventy years ago.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
Y'all.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
We put in work this season. Please leave us a
rating and review to let us know what you think.
It truly is a way to share Marsha's story and
help others find the show. After lives as a production
of The Outspoken Network from iHeart Podcasts in partnership with
(49:57):
School of Humans. I'm your host and creator Roquel Willis.
Dylan Hoyer is our senior producer and scriptwriter. Our associate
producer is Joey pat Sound design and engineering by Jess Crimechich,
Story editing by Julia Urlaun, fact checking by Carolyn Talmage.
(50:19):
Score composed by Wizi Moraine. Our production manager is Daisy Church.
Executive producers include me, Roquel Willis, and Jess Crincic from
The Outspoken Podcast Network, Amelia Brock, Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
and Elsie Crowley from School of Humans and The Cats Company.
(50:41):
The image of Marsha and our show art is provided
by the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art Founder Skift P.
Fifteen dot six nine nine dot one O six. A
special thanks to everyone who provided archival tape, including Marcia
nineteen ninety two by Michael Casino courtesy of Michael Casino,
(51:04):
the Randy Wicker and Marsha P. Johnson Papers at the
LGBT Community Center National History Archives, and interview with Marsha P.
Johnson nineteen eighty eight from one National Gay and Lesbian
Archives at the USC Libraries
Host
Raquel Willis
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