A breif history of Marsha & Randy’s record
in the Randy Wicker & Marsha P. Johnson Papers

In 1982, gay activist & political button king Randy Wicker invited his stripper friend Willie to live with him in Hoboken. Willie invited his friend, Marsha P. Johnson, to sleep on the floor of Randy’s living room. He didn’t believe she actually preferred the floor, but when she showed up she said it was true, and had been recovering from a gunshot wound after a john on the West Side Highway left her with a bullet in her back. Marsha was already a legend in the gay world, friendly personality hustling in 1960s Times Square, participant in the Stonewall Riots, and mother to many street kids. For years Randy had been openly transphobic toward Marsha’s S.T.A.R. House and co-founder Sylvia Rivera in the press. He was hesitant to let her in. But in no time, Marsha showed him a different way of seeing life just by being herself. In 1982, Randy wrote in his annual holiday letter, “Meanwhile, back at ‘Hotel Wicker,’ Hoboken’s finest ‘house,’ …I’ve taken in two roommates. One is a 37-year-old black transvestite hooker with an arrest record going back to 1963. That’s Malcolm, but everyone calls her ‘Marsha.’”

After this issue, Randy’s annual letters filled with color. Literally, because he began pasting in tons of polaroids from his adventures with Willie, Marsha, his longtime partner David Combs, and the crew at his lamp shop Uplift Lighting. (See below for 2 pages each of photos from the 1983 and 1984 letters.) The letters follow their days hustling and nights in the bars and on the streets, and stories about Marsha taking girls to the Macy’s makeup counter and caretaking during the AIDS crisis. They also tell stories about Marsha’s day-to-day hustle as a sex worker, her frequent arrests, and occasional breakdowns. In 1983 he wrote, “Marsha still gets arrested every now and then for hooking in drag on the West Side Highway but the NYC jails are so full they let her go after a couple days. We’re truly thankful for the crime wave.” She filled her family’s life with joy and adventure.

After Marsha was found dead in the Hudson River, Randy began printing off petitions demanding justice.

The police had ruled Marsha's death a suicide, but as you can read at the top of those petitions below, she was being harassed by a group of men near the Christopher Street piers where her body was found 36 hours later. Randy set up tables in Christopher Park outside the Stonewall, and hundreds of people signed the petitions demanding further investigation by the police. He set up a table outside of his lamp shop through the winter of '92, still taking signatures. You can view the complete “Demand Justice” petitions here, and the “Friends of Marsha P. Johnson” petitions here. The police department later rescinded the "suicide" designation and changed her cause of death to a "drowning of an undetermined nature." The police never solved the case.

Randy soon after put out a petition calling for a monument to Marsha in the Village. View those “Count Me In” petitions here. A monument was finally erected for Marsha in Christopher Park nearly 30 years later, a sculpture by Julian Prairie. They named their piece after a line from Randy Wicker’s 1984 holiday letter: “I’d seriously considered titling this year’s letter: ‘A Love Letter to Marsha.’”

He went on to write in that letter, “Yes, Marsha—more than anyone—makes me laugh when I am sad. She fills my life with warmth and makes it glow. When she’s here, every day is Christmas… ‘Love’ is what life is all about. Only during the Holidays do we seem to realize that. And, ironically, it has been Marsha—someone I’ve never had anything to do with sexually—who has helped show me what love is all about. Happy New Year! See you next year… maybe.”

See these papers below & much more soon in the Randy Wicker & Marsha P. Johnson Papers at the NYC LGBT Community Center National History Archive. Praire’s sculpture is on display there now, on the top floor of the NYC LGBT Center.

This archiving project has been made possible by Randy Wicker & by supporters at Patreon.com/QueerSerial. Special thank you to historian Tourmaline for all her work sharing history from Randy’s apartment before me.

xo
Devlyn Camp

P.S. Explore the Wicker/Johnson Papers here.