In honor of Marsha P. Johnson's birthday on August 24th, visual artist, Mentor, and Queer|Art Board President Nelson Santos has created new editions of his sculpture, POWER TO THE PEOPLE. The work is a glowing, neon-lit reinterpretation of a picket sign held by Johnson at a protest in 1970, and pays radiant homage to the rallying cry that continues to galvanize liberation movements to this day. The sculpture is now available for purchase, and with only 10 editions originally made, stock is extremely limited!
POWER TO THE PEOPLE, 2019, neon mounted on cardboard and wood, 29 x 24 x 4 in, by Nelson Santos. Edition of 10 + 3 APs
POWER TO THE PEOPLE is based on the picket sign held by Marsha P. Johnson in a 1970 photograph by Diana Davies. In the photo, Johnson stands with her sign outside of NYU’s Bellevue Hospital to protest the hospital's inhumane treatment of gay, transgender and homeless people. The work was created by Santos to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising (1969/2019) and to recognize Marsha P. Johnson’s activism at and beyond Stonewall.
Marsha P Johnson (August 24, 1945 – July 6, 1992), was a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front, and co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.) with Sylvia Rivera. STAR focused on the needs of homeless transgender sex workers – providing shelter, food and legal support. STAR also worked to combat discrimination within the gay community. STAR was founded out of the protest at NYU’s Weinstein Hall and Bellevue Hospital in August and September 1970.
Johnson was also a performer and member of ACT UP. Johnson stated "History isn't something you look back at and say it was inevitable, it happens because people make decisions that are sometimes very impulsive and of the moment, but those moments are cumulative realities."
According to Maggie Schreiner’s An Army of Lovers Cannot Lose: The Occupation of NYU’s Weinstein Hall, the organizers of the Christopher Street Liberation Day March (later named the Pride March), decided to coordinate a series of four dances, to be held at NYU’s Weinstein Hall as fundraisers for legal, medical, and housing services for the gay community. The “Dance-a-Fairs” were booked with the Weinstein Hall Student Governing Association on Friday evenings starting August 4th 1970, however the final dance scheduled for August 28th was canceled by the NYU administration and closed all university facilities to gay social functions until a panel of ministers and psychologists determined whether homosexuality was “morally acceptable.” Three weeks later, a meeting of the NYU group Gay Student Liberation decided to call for an immediate occupation of Weinstein Hall, in response to the administration’s discriminatory conduct toward gay, lesbian, and transgender functions on campus. A liaison was sent to a Gay Liberation Front meeting to request additional volunteers. Within hours there were almost 70 people in the cavernous hall, including transgender activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. The five-day event was an open occupation, and activists came and went from the hall, meeting with students from the residence building, flyering the university and holding public teach-ins on gay liberation.
On Friday, September 25th, the NYC Police were called to vacate the hall. Sylvia Rivera refused to leave, and was carried out by police. NYU’s homophobic policies and the violent actions of the city police led to a series of demonstrations against the university, including demonstrations held at NYU’s Bellevue Hospital, which practiced shock therapy treatment on homosexual psychiatry patients. Protesters presented the university with a list of demands, including the end of oppressive treatment of gay patients at Bellevue Hospital. Emerging from these protests was the formation of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) by Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera.
100% of proceeds, after fabrication costs, will be split between Queer|Art and Art For Black Lives.
Queer|Art is a community-based nonprofit whose mission is to connect and empower generations of LGBTQ+ artists. Art For Black Lives is a platform through which invited artists donate fine art digital prints for sale, with all profits providing resource support to the Black Trans Community.