Marsha P. Johnson
Johnson was a black trans woman who made strides in the LGBT+ community. In 1969, Johnson threw the first stone at the Stonewall Riots, the catalyst for LGBT+ liberation. As well as being an activist for the gay rights movement, she created the Street Transvestite Action Revolutions (STAR) with her friend Sylvia Rivera. STARs aided in helping homeless transgender youth. Today the Marsha P Johnson Institute works to help transgender youth and gender non-conforming communities.
“I was no one, nobody, from Nowheresville until I became a drag queen. That’s what made me in New York, that’s what made me in New Jersey, that’s what made me in the world.” -Marsha P. Johnson
Martha Cotera
Cotera, born in Chihuahua, Mexico, is a librarian, writer, and extremely influential activist for the Chicano Civil Rights Movement and the Chicano Feminist Movement in the United States. She, alongside a few other women, organized the Mujeres de La Raza Unida (Women of the Raza Unida) which opened up more political opportunities for women in the political party, Raza Unida. A year later she founded the Chicana Research and Learning Center in Austin, Texas in hopes of collecting grant money for projects in Chicano communities. On top of all of her activism work, she wrote a variety of books on the Chicano revolution, history, and more.
“If you are able to get a phone you’re a feminist. You’re already cashing in on the feminist legacy. That’s why I think we need to bring back that pride of being a feminist. If you’re not a feminist you must be some kind of weird person because you’re not owning up to your womanhood. If you’re a woman you’re a feminist that’s all there is to it, unless you’re dead. If you’re a woman living, breathing, and surviving, and for a woman to survive you have to be a feminist. I already. see my little granddaughter having to stand up for her rights. To deny being a feminist is to deny acknowledgment of what you have.” -Martha Cotera
Elizabeth Catlett
Catlett was a black artist who created sculptures depicting the black female experience in America. She describes her work as aiming to convey social messages rather than be aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Catlett was a member of the Taller de Grafica Popular, an artistic print collective that uses art as a revolutionary method. She was arrested in 1949 for her activism. Throughout her lifetime, Catlett received numerous awards for her art and her activism.
“I have always wanted my art to service my people – to reflect us, to relate to us, to stimulate us, to make us aware of our potential. We have to create an art for liberation and for life.” – Elizabeth Catlett
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons
Martin and Lyons are a prominent lesbian couple from the 1950s, the first same-sex couple to get married in San Franciso. Together they founded many organizations and did a plethora of activism work for Gay Liberation and feminism. In 1955 they founded the Daughters of Billitis, the first lesbian political and civil rights organization. They also formed the Council on Religion and the Homosexual which persuaded ministers to accept homosexuality in their churches. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, they used their influence to decriminalize homosexuality in California. As active members in the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club, they convinced the then-San Francisco mayor to sponsor a citywide bill that outlawed employment discrimination against the gay and lesbian community.
“Del is 83 years old and I am 79. After being together for more than 50 years, it is a terrible blow to have the rights and protections of marriage taken away from us. At our age, we do not have the luxury of time.” – Phyllis Lyons