She was arrested over 100 times for freedom fighting.

She wore flowers in her hair, took no mess from cops, and her middle initial stood for

Pay It No Mind.

And she helped start one of the most important riots in history.

This is Two Minute Black History, what you didn't learn in school.

Around 3am on June 28, 1969, the New York Police Department burst into a booming club and

began frisking, searching, and sexually harassing patrons.

But when police turned to full-on beatings, 25-year-old Marsha P. Johnson had had enough and

took matters into her own hands. Some say she hurled a brick at police,

shattering one of Stonewall Inn's windows. Others say it was a shot glass, or that she smashed

the windshield of a police car. Whatever it was, a riot was in full swing.

Stonewall was one of the only safe spaces, LGBTQ people could exist in those days.

And the patrons drastically outnumbered the cops. They threw bottles, rocks, and anything

else they could find.

The riot lasted five days with thousands of protesters. In Johnson, she called for social

and economic justice, housed homeless youth shunned by their families, and advocated for HIV-AIDS

patients. She did all this while being impoverished herself and being arrested over 100 times.

Unfortunately, her body was discovered in the Hudson River in 1992. Police said it was a

suicide and refused to further investigate her death. Through the Stonewall riots, Johnson's

legacy is the LGBTQ rights movement itself, prompting the first pride parades in 1970.

All Black people deserve to live and love freely, and like Johnson, we have to fight police

violence everywhere we see it. In order to move towards the future, you've got to look to the past.

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