Help build a monument to Marsha P. Johnson

Marsha P. Johnson was a pioneer of the Stonewall uprising, a drag queen, an Andy Warhol model, an actress, a revolutionary trans activist, and a native of Elizabeth, New Jersey.

The family of Marsha P. Johnson, the City of Elizabeth, Union County, and Garden State Equality are proud to announce plans to honor Marsha P. Johnson with a monument in her hometown, celebrating both her roots in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and her pivotal role in the vanguard of the modern LGBTQ civil rights movement.

Contribute today to honor Marsha P. Johnson's legacy!

About Marsha P. Johnson

Marsha P. Johnson is perhaps best known as one of the main instigators of the 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn, widely considered to be the event that kicked off the modern LGBTQ rights movement.

Johnson found joy as a successful self-made drag queen in Greenwich Village, infamous for her unique design and costume creation and touring the world with the Hot Peaches. She was a prominent fixture in the community, known as a "drag mother" helping homeless and struggling LGBTQ youth. After the Stonewall riots, Johnson and her friend Sylvia Rivera co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), which provided services and shelter to homeless LGBTQ people in New York City, Chicago, California, and England throughout the early 1970s.

Johnson was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1945, and lived there until she graduated from Thomas A. Edison High School in 1963. After leaving home for a short stint in the Navy and then for New York, Johnson remained in constant communication with her family. She often returned home to Elizabeth for the holidays, inviting wayward people along the way to join her family for a hot meal, arriving with trinkets for her nieces and nephews and flowers for her mother.

Call for Artists

If you are an artist interested in submitting a design for the monument, please get in touch with the Union County Office of LGBTQ Affairs.

Scholarship Fund

Garden State Equality is working with Johnson's family to establish a scholarship fund. Any funds raised through this fundraiser in excess of the monument cost will go to the scholarship fund.