Stonewall Activist

Stonewall Activist

b. December 24, 1920, New Orleans, Louisiana

d. May 24, 2014, Brooklyn, New York

“It was a rebellion, it was an uprising, it was a civil rights disobedience—it wasn’t no damn riot.”

Stormé DeLarverie was a Stonewall veteran and the sole female performer for the Jewel Box Review, a traveling drag show that toured the country from 1939 into the 1960s. At that time, cross-dressing was considered a criminal offense in most municipalities. The review included 24 drag queens and Stormé (pronounced “Stormy”), the only drag king.

When DeLarverie wasn’t traveling with the troupe, she lived at the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan and worked security at Henrietta Hudson, a well-known lesbian bar in the West Village. Constantly vigilant, DeLarverie thought of the bar patrons as her “babies” and patrolled the streets as their defender.

At the Stonewall Riot on June 27, 1969, DeLarverie threw the first punch. As the story goes, the New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a bar in Greenwich Village frequented by gay men, lesbians, and drag kings and queens. The police raids were habitual. That night DeLarverie saw three officers ganging up on one young man and sprang to the victim’s defense. One of the policemen shouted, “Move, Faggot!” mistaking DeLarverie for a man. The officer shoved DeLarverie, who retaliated with a punch to the face. The officer dropped to the ground, bleeding; thus began the Stonewall Riot.

DeLarverie preferred the word “rebellion” when it came to describing the events at the Stonewall. She felt the term “riot” connoted chaos and criminality.

In 2003 filmmaker Sam Bassett produced a documentary about DeLarverie. When she died at the age of 93, hundreds of admirers attended her West Village funeral service.

Gay Pioneer

b. October 31, 1940
d. June 18, 1993

“There was no one thing that happened or one person. There was just … mass anger.”

Craig Rodwell was a Gay Pioneer and the leading New York activist of the 1960s. He founded the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, the nation’s first gay bookstore, and the New York Pride Parade.

Born in Chicago, Rodwell attended an all-male Christian Science boarding school, where he experimented with same-sex relationships. After graduating from a public high school, he accepted a scholarship in 1958 to the American Ballet School in New York City. In New York he volunteered for The Mattachine Society, one of the nation’s first gay organizations.

In 1962 Rodwell developed a relationship with Harvey Milk. It was his first serious romance.

In 1964 Rodwell protested against the exclusion of gays from the military. It was the first gay rights demonstration in New York City. The same year, he and fellow Gay Pioneer Frank Kameny conceived the first organized public demonstrations for gay and lesbian equality. Known as Annual Reminders, the protests took place in Philadelphia each Fourth of July from 1965 to 1969 in front of Independence Hall. Demonstrators participated from Philadelphia, New York and Washington.

During those seminal years, Rodwell was involved in numerous gay rights organizations. He was an early member of East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO) and started the Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods, which held rallies and published the periodical HYMNAL.

In 1965 Rodwell led a protest at the United Nations Plaza against the detention of gay Cubans in work camps. The following year, he participated in a “sip in” at Julius, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, to protest a State Liquor Authority rule prohibiting homosexuals from congregating in places that served alcohol. Continuing protests ended the rule in New York State.

Rodwell opened the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in 1967. Located in the heart of Greenwich Village, it became a mecca for gay activists.

In 1969 Rodwell took part in the Stonewall Rebellion and was the first to shout “Gay Power!” At an ECHO meeting thereafter, he proposed a resolution to suspend the Annual Reminders in favor of an event commemorating the anniversary of Stonewall. Rodwell, Frank Kameny, Barbara Gittings and other pioneering activists organized a march. Held on June 28, 1970, it is remembered as the first New York Gay Pride Parade.

Rodwell remained a consequential figure in the gay liberation movement of the ’70s and ’80s. He was honored with the Lambda Literary Award for Publisher’s Service in 1992. He sold his bookstore the following year. It remained open until 2009.

Rodwell died of stomach cancer at age 52. 

Stonewall Veteran

b. August 24, 1945
d. July 6, 1992

“I may be crazy but that don’t make me wrong.”

Born Malcolm Michaels, Marsha P. Johnson was a well-known New York City drag queen who fought police at the Stonewall Riots in 1969 and became a trailblazing transgender, gay rights and AIDS activist.

Immediately after Stonewall, Johnson joined the nascent Gay Liberation Front. In 1970 she cofounded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.) with fellow Stonewall agitator, Sylvia Rivera. At the time, transvestitism was illegal in New York. Gender-nonconforming people, particularly those of color, faced intolerance, harassment and violence. Like Johnson, many lived on the streets and resorted to sex work for their survival.

S.T.A.R. created a shelter where transgender adults and youth could share food, clothing and support in relative safety. At the residence, Johnson’s maternal behavior earned her the nickname “queen mother.”

Johnson performed at local clubs and became a visible presence at gay rights events and protests. Andy Warhol photographed her and produced screen prints of her portrait. Although she favored the pronoun “she,” Johnson described herself as a “gay transvestite.” When asked about her middle initial, she would reply that “P” stood for “pay it no mind”— words that helped her persevere.

Johnson struggled with drug addition. She contracted AIDS and joined ACT UP, an organization founded in the 1980s to combat the epidemic. She was instrumental in raising awareness about issues impacting people with the virus.

In 1992, shortly after New York’s Gay Pride Parade, Johnson’s body was found floating in the Hudson River. Although police initially ruled the death a suicide, she was last seen being harassed by a group of men. Despite a grassroots campaign to investigate her death, the N.Y.P.D. did not reopen the case until 2012. It remains unsolved.

Johnson has been the subject of multiple plays and films. Ten days before she died, she was interviewed for what became the 2012 documentary, “Pay it No Mind: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson.” Johnson was also featured in the Oscar-nominated 2012 documentary “How to Survive a Plague,” about the early years of the AIDS crisis. A new documentary, “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson,” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2017.