Democrat New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday in a speech at a Human Rights Campaign gala that he plans to rename a state park in Brooklyn after a trans activist.
The East River Park in Williamsburg will be renamed after the late LGBTQ activist Marsha P. Johnson, making it the first time the state has named a park after an LGBTQ person.
“New York State is the progressive capital of the nation, and while we are winning the legal battle for justice for the LGBTQ community, in many ways we are losing the broader war for equality,” Cuomo said Saturday at the Human Rights Campaign Greater New York Gala.
Cuomo added that Johnson was “an icon of the community.”
Johnson died at the age of 46 from an unknown cause after decades of activism and was considered to be one of the key figures in the Stonewall Uprising.
The event caused police and LGBTQ people to clash at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village after the New York Police Department (NYPD) attempted to enforce a law that made it illegal to serve alcohol to LGBTQ people.
Johnson was also responsible for co-founding Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with another trans activist Sylvia Rivera. Both people led the organization, which aimed to find housing and support for homeless queer youth and sex workers in New York City.
New York City officials announced last year that they would dedicate a public monument to Johnson and Rivera. The details on that monument have not yet been released.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.