Celebrating Pride: Google Honours LGBTQ+ Rights Activist Marsha P Johnson With a Colourful Doodle | Earth Indian

New Delhi: Google on Tuesday paid tributes to the prominent LGBTQ+ rights activist, performer, and self-identified drag queen Marsha P. Johnson,  who is widely credited as one of the pioneers of the LGBTQ+ rights movement in the US.

It was on this day in 2019 that Johnson as posthumously honored as a grand marshal of the New York City Pride March.

The Google Doodle, illustrated by Los Angeles-based visitor artist Rob Gilliam shows Marsha in her iconic flowery and colourful headgear as she looks back and smiles.

Notably, Marsha P. Johnson was born Malcolm Michaels Jr. on August 24th, 1945, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She moved to New York City’s Greenwich Village, after graduating high school in 1963.

There she legally modified her identity to Marsha P. Johnson, with Her center initial-“P.”-allegedly stood for her response to those that questioned her gender: “Pay It No Mind.”

A #GoogleDoodle celebrating the life & legacy of American LGBTQ+ rights activist, performer, & self-identified drag queen Marsha P. Johnson.

Thank you, Marsha, for inspiring people everywhere to stand up for the freedom to be themselves. → https://t.co/Xj5gXYgz2M pic.twitter.com/CnqnHbTrKA

— Google Doodles (@GoogleDoodles) June 30, 2020

Google describes her as, ”A beloved and charismatic fixture in the LGBTQ+ community, Johnson is credited as one of the key leaders of the 1969 Stonewall uprising— widely regarded as a critical turning point for the international LGBTQ+ rights movement.”

”The following year, she founded the Street Transvestite (now Transgender) Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with fellow transgender activist Sylvia Rivera. STAR was the first organization in the U.S. to be led by a trans woman of color and was the first to open North America’s first shelter for LGBTQ+ youth,” Google further wrote.

“As a queer person of color I owe Marsha so much. She was the catalyst for our liberation, the driving force behind the movement that has given many of us the rights and freedoms that we previously couldn’t even dream of. Marsha created a space for us in western society through her empowering bravery and refusal to be silenced,” said artist Rob Gilliam, who created the doodle.

 

 

By Shivam Urkude || Earth Indian